Quotes about time
page 100

Ahad Ha'am photo
Al Di Meola photo
Bill Maher photo
Benjamin Graham photo

“It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: World Commodities and World Currencies (1944), Chapter X, Commodity Unit Stabilization, p. 109

Joanna MacGregor photo
George Chapman photo
Géza Vermès photo
Han-shan photo

“I'm going to pray to our leader every time!”

Child
The Children's Story (1982)

Bob Barr photo

“…there remains time to turn back the constitutional clock and roll back excessive post-9/11 powers before we turn the corner into another Japanese internment or, closer to our own experiences, before we witness a legally sanctioned Ruby Ridge or Waco scenario.”

Bob Barr (1948) Republican and Libertarian politician

Testimony Submitted to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on America Post-9/11, 18 November 2003, as quoted in America after 9/11: Freedom Preserved or Freedom Lost? http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2003_h/031118-barr.htm.
2000s, 2003

David Letterman photo

“David Letterman: Earlier today, the man who owns this network, Leslie Moonves—he and I have had a relationship for years and years and years—and we have had this conversation in the past, and we agreed that we would work together on this circumstance and the timing of this circumstance. And I phoned him just before the program, and I said, "Leslie, it's been great, you've been great, the network has been great, but I'm retiring."
Paul Shaffer: This is—really?
David Letterman: Yep.
Paul Shaffer: This is—this is—you actually did this?
David Letterman: Yes, I did.
[dead silence in the studio followed by nervous laughter from the audience]
Paul Shaffer: Well—do I have a minute to call my accountant, because…I, uh…
[Dave cracks up]
David Letterman: I just want to reiterate my thanks for the support from the network, all of the people who have worked here, all of the people in the theatre, all the people on the staff, everybody at home. Thank you very much. And what this means now, is that Paul and I can be married.
[uproarious laughter and applause as wedding chimes play]
David Letterman: So we don't have the timing of this precisely down, I think it will be at least a year or so. But sometime in the not too distant future—2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping things up and taking a hike.
[studio audience goes wild, gives him a standing ovation]
David Letterman: Thank you, thanks everybody. All right, thanks very much.”

David Letterman (1947) American comedian and actor

On announcing his retirement, quoted in Here’s what happened the moment David Letterman announced his retirement (transcript + video) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/03/heres-what-happened-the-moment-david-letterman-announced-his-retirement-transcript-video/ by Emily Yahr, in "The Washington Post" (3 April 2014).

Nicholas Sparks photo
Halle Berry photo
Antonio Negri photo
Bernard Lewis photo

“Coming back to Iraq, obviously the situation has been getting worse over time, but I think it is still salvageable. We now have a political process going on, and I think if one looks at the place and what's been happening there, one has to marvel at what has been accomplished. There is an old saying, no news is good news, and the media obviously work on the reverse principle: Good news is no news. Most of the good things that have happened have not been reported, but there has been tremendous progress in many respects. Three elections were held three fair elections in which millions of Iraqis stood in line waiting to vote and knowing they were risking their lives every moment that they did so. And all this wrangling that's going on now is part of the democratic process, the fact that they argue, that they negotiate, that they try to find a compromise. This is part of their democratic education.
So I find all this both annoying and encouraging. I see that more and more people are becoming involved in the political process. And there's one thing in Iraq in particular that I think is encouraging, and that is the role of women. Of all the Arab countries, with the possible exception of Tunisia, Iraq is the one where women have made most progress. I'm not talking about rights, a word that has no meaning in that context. I'm talking about opportunity, access. Women in Iraq had access to education, to higher education, and therefore to the professions, and therefore to the political process to a degree without parallel elsewhere in the Arab world, as I said, with the possible exception of Tunisia. And I think that the participation of women the increasing participation of women is a very encouraging sign for the development of democratic institutions.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Bernard Lewis (2006)

Henry Moore photo
Camille Paglia photo

“The sixteenth century transformed Middle English into modern English. Grammar was up for grabs. People made up vocabulary and syntax as they went along. Not until the eighteenth century would rules of English usage appear. Shakespearean language is a bizarre super-tongue, alien and plastic, twisting, turning, and forever escaping. It is untranslatable, since it knocks Anglo-Saxon root words against Norman and Greco-Roman importations sweetly or harshly, kicking us up and down rhetorical levels with witty abruptness. No one in real life ever spoke like Shakespeare’s characters. His language does not “make sense,” especially in the greatest plays. Anywhere from a third to a half of every Shakespearean play, I conservatively estimate, will always remain under an interpretive cloud. Unfortunately, this fact is obscured by the encrustations of footnotes in modern texts, which imply to the poor cowed student that if only he knew what the savants do, all would be as clear as day. Every time I open Hamlet, I am stunned by its hostile virtuosity, its elusiveness and impenetrability. Shakespeare uses language to darken. He suspends the traditional compass points of rhetoric, still quite firm in Marlowe, normally regarded as Shakespeare’s main influence. Shakespeare’s words have “aura.””

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

This he got from Spenser, not Marlowe.
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 195

James A. Garfield photo

“Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

"Elements of Success", as published in President Garfield and education. Hiram college memorial (1882), compiled by B. A. Hinsdale, p. 331

Antonio Negri photo
James Frazer photo

“For the present we have journeyed far enough together, and it is time to part.”

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 69, Farewell to Nemi.

Donald J. Trump photo

“I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It's about time!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Tweet published by @realdonaldtrump https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881138485905772549 (1 July 2017)
2010s, 2017, July

Luther Burbank photo
Edmund Burke photo
Howard S. Becker photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Hugo De Vries photo

“Physiologic facts concerning the origin of species in nature were unknown in the time of Darwin... The experience of the breeders was quite inadequate to the use which Darwin made of it. It was neither scientific, nor critically accurate. Laws of variation were barely conjectured; the different types of variability were only imperfectly distinguished. The breeders' conception was fairly sufficient for practical purposes, but science needed a clear understanding of the factors in the general process of variation. Repeatedly Darwin tried to formulate these causes, but the evidence available did not meet his requirements.
Quetelet's law of variation had not yet been published. Mendel's claim of hereditary units for the explanation of certain laws of hybrids discovered by him, was not yet made. The clear distinction between spontaneous and sudden changes, as compared with the ever-present fluctuating variations, is only of late coming into recognition by agriculturists. Innumerable minor points which go to elucidate the breeders' experience, and with which we are now quite familiar, were unknown in Darwin's time. No wonder that he made mistakes, and laid stress on modes of descent, which have since been proved to be of minor importance or even of doubtful validity.”

Hugo De Vries (1848–1935) Dutch botanist

Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation (1904), The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, p. 5-6

Barbara Hepworth photo
James Russell Lowell photo

“What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Variant: What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!
Source: My Study Windows (1871), chapter "Library of Old Authors'".

Elie Wiesel photo

“From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace.. . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

As quoted in "Is World Peace on the Horizon?", in The Watchtower (15 April 1991)

John Fante photo
Carol J. Adams photo
Arnold Toynbee photo
Charlton Heston photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

History
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series

Harbhajan Singh photo

“Whenever that (marriage) happens, everyone will come to know. It's really upsetting as every time there are rumours going around about my marriage. It is not like I am hiding anything. Whenever it happens we will tell”

Harbhajan Singh (1980) Indian cricketer

the media
Geeta Basra about their impending wedding, quoted on sports.ndtv, "Harbhajan Singh's Passion and Humility a Source of Inspiration for Girlfriend Geeta Basra" http://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/news/243922-harbhajan-singh-s-passion-and-humilty-a-source-of-inspiration-for-girlfriend-geeta-basra, June 17, 2015.
About

Bernard Lewis photo

“There are other difficulties in the way of accepting imperialism as an explanation of Muslim hostility, even if we define imperialism narrowly and specifically, as the invasion and domination of Muslim countries by non-Muslims. If the hostility is directed against imperialism in that sense, why has it been so much stronger against Western Europe, which has relinquished all its Muslim possessions and dependencies, than against Russia, which still rules, with no light hand, over many millions of reluctant Muslim subjects and over ancient Muslim cities and countries? And why should it include the United States, which, apart from a brief interlude in the Muslim-minority area of the Philippines, has never ruled any Muslim population? The last surviving European empire with Muslim subjects, that of the Soviet Union, far from being the target of criticism and attack, has been almost exempt. Even the most recent repressions of Muslim revolts in the southern and central Asian republics of the USSR incurred no more than relatively mild words of expostulation, coupled with a disclaimer of any desire to interfere in what are quaintly called the "internal affairs" of the USSR and a request for the preservation of order and tranquillity on the frontier.
One reason for this somewhat surprising restraint is to be found in the nature of events in Soviet Azerbaijan. Islam is obviously an important and potentially a growing element in the Azerbaijani sense of identity, but it is not at present a dominant element, and the Azerbaijani movement has more in common with the liberal patriotism of Europe than with Islamic fundamentalism. Such a movement would not arouse the sympathy of the rulers of the Islamic Republic. It might even alarm them, since a genuinely democratic national state run by the people of Soviet Azerbaijan would exercise a powerful attraction on their kinsmen immediately to the south, in Iranian Azerbaijan.
Another reason for this relative lack of concern for the 50 million or more Muslims under Soviet rule may be a calculation of risk and advantage. The Soviet Union is near, along the northern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan; America and even Western Europe are far away. More to the point, it has not hitherto been the practice of the Soviets to quell disturbances with water cannon and rubber bullets, with TV cameras in attendance, or to release arrested persons on bail and allow them access to domestic and foreign media. The Soviets do not interview their harshest critics on prime time, or tempt them with teaching, lecturing, and writing engagements. On the contrary, their ways of indicating displeasure with criticism can often be quite disagreeable.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

David Wood photo

“Dialogue never ends not for lack of time or opportunity but for essential reasons.”

David Wood (1946) British philosopher, born 1946

Source: Philosophy At The Limit (1990), Chapter 7, Vigilance and Interruption, p. 121

Vyasa photo
Francis Escudero photo

“Thank you, Mr. President and thank you distinguished colleagues. We ask earnestly for your help in the timely passage of the 2015 National Budget. At this junction, Mr. President, may I ask that we recognize Senate President Pro-Tempore Recto.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Sponsorship Speech on the FY 2015 National Budget http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2014/1118_escudero3.asp
2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

Earl Warren photo
Yvette Rosser photo

“Proposals to include Sanskrit in the course offerings were rejected numerous times by scholars who wanted to protect JNU from what they considered to be a majoritarian or Hindu Nationalist agenda. When I questioned Romila Thapar, a well known historian from JNU, about this issue in July 2000, she explained that if students want to learn Sanskrit, “there are so many Maths and Piths around where they can go.””

Yvette Rosser (1952) American activist

She added that “most of the regional colleges have some kind of Sanskrit program”.
Rosser, Yvette Claire (2003). Curriculum as Destiny: Forging National Identity in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Dissertation). University of Texas at Austin.

James Jeans photo
Tommaso Campanella photo
Phil Brown (footballer) photo

“They will carry us over the finishing line every so often, and we’ll carry them over the line other times. It’s a mutual respect at the moment.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

Oct-2011, Lancashire Evening Post
That nearly makes sense.

Beyoncé photo

“We have to care about our bodies and what we put in them. Women have to take the time to focus on our mental health—take time for self, for the spiritual, without feeling guilty or selfish. The world will see you the way you see you, and treat you the way you treat yourself.”

Beyoncé (1981) American singer, songwriter and actress

"Beyoncé Wants to Change the Conversation", interview with Elle (4 April 2016) http://www.elle.com/fashion/a35286/beyonce-elle-cover-photos

Theo van Doesburg photo

“He was a fairly competent chairman of Housing [on Lambeth Council]. Every time he gets up now I keep thinking, "What on earth is Councillor Major doing?" I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either.”

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

The Right Hon wag http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1682818,00.html, The Guardian, 10 January 2006.
on seeing John Major in the House of Commons as Prime Minister.

Austen Henry Layard photo
Yanis Varoufakis photo
Isaac Leib Peretz photo

“Time is change, transformation, evolution. Time is eternal sprouting, blossoming, the eternal tomorrow.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Hofnung un Shrek, 1906. Alle Verk, xiii. 9.

Donald Barthelme photo
Mitt Romney photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Stafford Cripps photo
Thomas Little Heath photo
Gabriele Münter photo

“We are supposedly a country at war, but we’re all going about watching American Idol and having not all that different a time than if we weren’t at war. I observe the weird juxtaposition of reading the newspaper and then tuning into American Idol and getting really upset when Constantine gets voted off and then wondering where my head was at. But in a way, that’s also the salvation of the country, our level of optimism.”

on making American Dreamz http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/movies/14326165.htm
Also phrased as: "I think it was just the weird feeling of, being like a lot of Americans and sort of reading the paper in the morning and worrying about terrorism and whether the administration was handling things in the right way, and then in the evening worrying even more about whether Constantine was going to get kicked off American Idol. It was really just kind of observing myself and, finding this weird disconnect, between the supposedly deadly serious situation of being at war with us going about our daily lives as if nothing is happening."

Terry McAuliffe photo
Henrik Ibsen photo
Jane Roberts photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Suze Robertson photo

“. In the beginning I was struggling very much with [painting] children, for that painting by Br. [probably, Henk Bremmer? ]. It has an almost square format. The woman must look to the right [and] there must be a child with her... But I painted only a few children with mothers, and recent times not at all; and then that size (square), I don't know how to handle it. I now think to come back to The Hague Sunday afternoon [and] to leave Heeze early. Monday here is another holy Day [catholic region]. So I can not work then..”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson's brief:) .Ik heb hier in het begin nog al erg getobd met kinderen, voor dat schilderijtje van Br. [waarschijnlijk, nl:Henk Bremmer?]. Het formaat dat bijna vierkant is. De vrouw moet naar rechts kijken [en] er moet een kind bij.. .Maar kinderen bij moeders heb ik weinig geschilderd tenminste in de laatste tijd heelemaal niet en dan kan ik met dat formaat (vierkant) niet goed klaarkomen. Ik denk nu haast Zondagmiddag in den Haag te komen vroeg hier uit nl:Heeze te gaan. Maandag is hier weer heilige Dag [katholieke bevolking]. Dus kan ik ook niet werken..
In a letter of Suze Robertson from Heeze, 11 August 1904, to her husband Richard Bisschop in The Hague; as cited in Suze Robertson 1855-1922 – Schilderes van het harde en zware leven, exhibition catalog, ed. Peter Thoben; Museum Kemperland, Eindhoven, 2008, p. 11
1900 - 1922

Gloria Estefan photo

“This blend of musicians on '90 Millas' is historically significant on a number of levels. This is the first and quite possibly the last time that all of these legendary artists will play together on one CD.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

orlandosentinel.com -- exerpt from Burgundy Records announcement of '90 Millas' (August 10, 2007)
2007, 2008

Calvin Coolidge photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Larry Niven photo

“The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Scatterbrain (2003), p. 26

Valentino Braitenberg photo

“Imagine the inside of St. Peter’s in Rome filled with a huge quantity of fibers around a millimeter in diameter that crisscross the building in every direction creating a firm mat – then you have an idea of what the brain looks like when magnified a thousand times.”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

Braitenberg, quoted in: Elke Maier (2012) " Spying on God http://www.mpg.de/6348834/S005_Flashback_086-087.pdf" in Max Planck Research, March 2012

Russell Brand photo

“In an infinite universe; eternal time, why just do what people tell you? 'ave a laugh; do what you want.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Radio One Interview, July 5th 2007

Sania Mirza photo
George Eliot photo
Robert Herrick photo

“Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.”

"Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve".
Hesperides (1648)

Thomas Carlyle photo
Björn Ulvaeus photo
David Morrison photo
Helen Keller photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Mickey Spillane photo
John Updike photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Are you proud o' yourself, Jeff? I could have been seriously injured last week. And you got a lot of nerve faking an eye injury and leaving me to fend for myself, especially considering you're the one who injured my eye in the first place. As far as what you said earlier about me making the whole thing up, coming out here with your cute eye patch mocking me: I wanna show you something, Jeff." (takes out a little plastic jar of some sort of liquid eye medicine)
"This, is polymoxin bisulfate. I have to apply this to my eye three times a day. The only way you obtain this is with a prescription, from a doctor. Now, I know, you know a thing or two about prescription medication, but I don't think you realize is that you have to go to a doctor to legally obtain some. Unlike you, Jeff, this is the only foreign substance I will allow in my body. So if you wanna imitate me, why don't you try living a clean lifestyle? Why don't you try living, a straightedge lifestyle? "Jeff… you've got two strikes. You know how many I have? Zero. Jeff, you know how many times I've been suspended? Zero. You know how many times I've been to a rehab facility? That's right- zero. And do you know what your chances are of beating me at Night of Champions?”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

(long pause)
"Zero."
Addressing Jeff Hardy before his match with the Great Khali, both to prove that his eye injury is real (in storyline) and to drive home a point about the drug-related mistakes of Jeff's past as recently as 16 months ago. July 10, 2009.
Friday Night SmackDown

Jonathan Stroud photo
Kenny Dalglish photo

“What do I say to them in the dressing-room? Nothing really. Most of the time I don't even know what they are going to do myself.”

Kenny Dalglish (1951) Scottish association football player and manager

On managing Liverpool FC ( Source http://imdb.com/name/nm0197910/bio)

Paul A. Samuelson photo

“In the preface to the reissue of Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Frank Knight makes the penetrating observation that under the conditions envisaged above the velocity of circulation would become infinite and so would the price level. This is perhaps an over-dramatic way of saying that nobody would hold money, and it would become a free good to go into the category of shell and other things which once served as money. We should expect too that it would not only pass out of circulation, but it would cease to be used as a conventional numeraire in terms of which prices are expressed. Interest bearing money would emerge. Of course, the above does not happen in real life, precisely because uncertainty, contingency needs, non-synchronization of revenues and outlay, transaction frictions, etc., etc., all are with us. But the abstract special case analyzed above should warn us against the facile assumption that the average levels of the structure of interest rates are determined solely or primarily by these differential factors. At times they are primary, and at other times, such as the twenties in this country, they may not be. As a generalization I should hazard the hypothesis that they are likely to be of great importance in an economy in which there is a “quasi-zero" rate of interest. I think by this hypothesis one can explain many of the anomalies of the United States money market in the thirties.”

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 5 : Theory of Consumer’s Behavior

Donald J. Trump photo

“For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans. How can she be President of our country when she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

[Clinton walks back 'deplorables' comment: I 'regret' using the term to describe 'half' of Trump's supporters, Beremy, Berke, Business Insider, 10 September 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/clinton-regrets-deplorables-comment-2016-9/]
2010s, 2016, September

Stephen Wolfram photo
Howie Rose photo
Donald Rumsfeld photo

“As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe -- it's a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

[Troops put Rumsfeld in the hot seat, http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/08/rumsfeld.kuwait/index.html, 2006-04-07, 2004-12-08, CNN]
Responding to the question "Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up armor our vehicles, and why don't we have those resources readily available to us?"
2000s

Marcel Duchamp photo