Quotes about time
page 67

Cecelia Ahern photo
Louisa May Alcott photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Emil Ludwig photo

“The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.”

Emil Ludwig (1881–1948) German writer

Die Entscheidung, sich zum ersten Mal zu küssen, ist die wichtigste in jeder Liebesbeziehung. Es verändert die Beziehung von zwei Menschen wesentlich stärker als letzendlich die Kapitulation; denn dieser Kuss trägt die Kapitulation schon in sich.
Of Life and Love (2005), p. 29 [Über das Glück und die Liebe, 1940]

Adolf Hitler photo

“In a hundred years time, perhaps, a great man will appear who may offer them (the Germans) a chance at salvation. He'll take me as a model, use my ideas, and follow the course I have charted.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in “Der Führer als Redner,” Adolf Hitler. Bilder aus dem Leben des Führers" (The Fuhrer as a speaker) by Joseph Goebbels
Other remarks

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon photo
Gerhard Richter photo

“Though life seems painful, at the same time it is wonderful”

Ritsuko Okazaki (1959–2004) Japanese singer

空色(Sorairo), Siki
Lyrics

John Archibald Wheeler photo

“I had the good fortune of having my first and only heart attack last January … I call it good fortune because it taught me that there's a limited amount of time left and I better concentrate on one thing: How come existence? How come the quantum? Maybe those questions sound too philosophical, but maybe philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers.”

John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008) American physicist

As quoted by Amanda Gefter (from the symposium in honor of Wheeler's 90th birthday) [Trespassing on Einstein's lawn: a father, a daughter, the meaning of nothing, and the beginning of everything, 2014, https://books.google.com/books?id=NUMkAAAAQBAJ]

Jack Johnson (musician) photo

“You're breaking your mind
By killing the time that kills you
But you can't blame the time
When its only in your mind”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Sexy Plexi.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Godfrey Higgins photo
Ilana Mercer photo
Clay Shirky photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Éric Pichet photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: "Stay, thou art so fair." And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt
Variant: Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
Documents on International Affairs, 1963, Royal Institute of International Affairs, ed. Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett, p. 36.

Anthony Giddens photo

“This situation [alienation] can therefore [according to Durkheim] be remedied by providing the individual with a moral awareness of the social importance of his particular role in the division of labour. He is then no longer an alienated automaton. but is a useful part of an organic whole: ‘from that time, as special and uniform as his activity may be, it is that of an intelligent being, for it has direction, and he is aware of it.’ This is entirely consistent with Durkheim’s general account of the growth of the division of labour, and its relationship to human freedom. It is only through moral acceptance in his particular role in the division of labour that the individual is able to achieve a high degree of autonomy as a self-conscious being, and can escape both the tyranny of rigid moral conformity demanded in undifferentiated societies on the one hand and the tyranny of unrealisable desires on the other.
Not the moral integration of the individual within a differentiated division of labour but the effective dissolution of the division of labour as an organising principle of human social intercourse, is the premise of Marx’s conception. Marx nowhere specifies in detail how this future society would be organised socially, but, at any rate,. this perspective differs decisively from that of Durkheim. The vision of a highly differentiated division of labour integrated upon the basis of moral norms of individual obligation and corporate solidarity. is quite at variance with Marx’s anticipation of the future form of society.
According to Durkheim’s standpoint. the criteria underlying Marx’s hopes for the elimination of technological alienation represent a reversion to moral principles which are no longer appropriate to the modern form of society. This is exactly the problem which Durkheim poses at the opening of The Division of Labour: ‘Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being. one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism?’ The analysis contained in the work, in Durkheim’s view, demonstrates conclusively that organic solidarity is the ‘normal’ type in modern societies, and consequently that the era of the ‘universal man’ is finished. The latter ideal, which predominated up to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in western Europe is incompatible with the diversity of the contemporary order. In preserving this ideal. by contrast. Marx argues the obverse: that the tendencies which are leading to the destruction of capitalism are themselves capable of effecting a recovery of the ‘universal’ properties of man. which are shared by every individual.”

Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist

Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 230-231.

Bill Clinton photo
Slobodan Milošević photo
Clement of Alexandria photo
Hana Maria Pravda photo

“We had so little to eat, we were freezing all the time, but the sheer joy of being able to act fed our souls.”

Hana Maria Pravda (1916–2008) British actress

Quoted in "Holocaust diarist is played by actress granddaughter", Dalya info Evening Standard, Dri 11 Jan 2013 p. 29

Rutger Bregman photo
Ibrahim of Ghazna photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“It was a time of transition, which few recognized, and glutting national satisfaction. Students and scholars were silent.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 6

“Childhood may have periods of great happiness, but it also has times that must simply be endured. Childhood at its best is a form of slavery tempered by affection.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Lewis Carroll in the Theatre (1994)

Hillary Clinton photo
Madalyn Murray O'Hair photo

“One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times.... He is beyond human forgiveness.”

Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1919–1995) Atheist activist

Quoted without citation by Ted Dracos, UnGodly: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (2003), on her son William's rejection of atheism and conversion to Christianity and new calling as a traveling evangelist.
Attributed

“I actually used them three times, throwing them away in shame before use two times. It is for these offenses that I confessed being immoral and deceitful.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

KRDO http://www.krdo.com/Global/story.asp?S=8556903, accessed June 26, 2008

Yves Klein photo
James Hudson Taylor photo

“What I have to watch against is impatience at waiting His time.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 408).

Newton Lee photo

“As citizen journalists and bloggers are becoming more important in news gathering and timely dissemination, mainstream media has found an important ally in the Fifth Estate.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

Aurangzeb photo

“Darab Khan who had been sent with a strong force to punish the Rajputs of Khandela and to demolish the great temple of the place, attacked the place on the 8th March/5th Safar, and slew the three hundred and odd men who made a bold defence, not one of them escaping alive. [16 October 1678] The temples of Khandela and Sanula and all other temples in the neighbourhood were demolished…'On Sunday, the 25th May/24th Rabi. S., Khan Jahan Bahadur came from Jodhpur, after demolishing the temples and bringing with himself some cart-loads of idols, and had audience of the Emperor, who highly praised him and ordered that the idols, which were mostly jewelled, gold en, silver y, bronze, copper or stone, should be cast in the yard (jilaukhanah) of the Court and under the steps of the Jam'a mosque, to be trodden on. They remained so for some time and at last their very names were lost' [25 May 1679]…Ruhullah Khan and Ekkataz Khan went to demolish the great temple in front of the Rana's palace, which was one of the rarest buildings of the age and the chief cause of the destruction of life and property of the despised worshippers Twenty machator Rajputs who were sitting in the temple vowed to give up their lives; first one of them came out to fight, killed some and was then himself slain, then came out another and so on, until every one of the twenty perished, after killing a large number of the imperialists including the trusted slave, Ikhlas. The temple was found empty. The hewers broke the images…..”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Maasir-i-alamgiri, translated into English by Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar, Calcutta, 1947, pp. 107-120, also quoted in part in Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers. Different translation: “Darab Khan was sent with a strong force to punish the Rajputs of Khandela and demolish the great temple of that place.” (M.A. 171.) “He attacked the place on 8th March 1679, and pulled down the temples of Khandela and Sanula and all other temples in the neighbourhood.”(M.A. 173.) Sarkar, Jadunath (1972). History of Aurangzib: Volume III. App. V.
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s

Mark Waid photo

“Communism further alleges that religion is not of divine origin but is simply a man-made tool used by the dominant class to suppress the exploited class. Marx and Engels described religion as the opiate of the people which is designed to lull them into humble submission and an acceptance of the prevailing mode of production which the dominant class desires to perpetuate. Any student of history would agree that there have been times in history when unscrupulous individuals and even misdirected religious organizations have abused the power of religion, just as all other institutions of society have been abused at various times. But it was not the abuse of religion which Marx and Engels deplored as much as the very existence of religion. They considered it a creation of the dominant class, a tool and a weapon in the hands of the oppressors. They pointed out the three-fold function of religion from their point of view: first, it teaches respect for property rights; second, it teaches the poor their duties towards the property and prerogatives of the ruling class; and third, it instills a spirit of acquiescence among the exploited poor so as to destroy their revolutionary spirit. The fallacy of these allegations is obvious to any student of Judaic-Christian teachings. The Biblical teaching of respect for property applies to rich and poor alike; it admonishes the rich to give the laborer his proper wages and to share their riches with the needy.”

The Naked Communist (1958)

William Carlos Williams photo
Taliesin photo
Larry Holmes photo

“When you constantly hear people talking about going the distance, going the distance, you can't help but wonder about it. I learned a lesson: next time I will fight my fight without that doubt.”

Larry Holmes (1949) American boxer

After the Cooney fight, as quoted in "Sport: Larry Holmes: I Still Have It" by Tom Callahan in TIME (21 June 1982) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925485-3,00.html.

Starhawk photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Hendrik Werkman photo

“Last Sunday we made a bicycle tour of 80 km. Through the North along the edge of the province [Groningen].... On such a day I get again a lot of impressions which will reappear in altered forms in due time. Beautiful landscapes, nice small roads, beautiful farms, meadows with horses and cattle, birds, water and a lot of sunshine. Mills and towers and trees are breaking the lines of the flat land..”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Zondag maakten we een fietstocht van 80 km. Door het Noorden langs de rand van de provincie [Groningen].. .Op zoo’n dag doe ik weer heel wat indrukken op die te gelegener tijd omgewerkt weer tevoorschijn komen. Mooie landschappen, aardige weggetjes, prachtige boerderijen, weiden met paarden en vee, vogels, water en zonneschijn volop. Molens en torens en boomen breken de lijnen van het vlakke land..
In a letter to Henkels, 12 July 1944; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 18
1940's

Thomas Francis Meagher photo

“In this assembly, every political school has its teachers — every creed has its adherents — and I may safely say, that this banquet is the tribute of United Ireland to the representative of American benevolence. Being such, I am at once reminded of the dinner which took place after the battle of Saratoga, at which Gates and Burgoyne — the rival soldiers — sat together. Strange scene! Ireland, the beaten and the bankrupt, entertains America, the victorious and the prosperous! Stranger still! The flag of the Victor decorates this hail — decorates our harbour — not, indeed, in triumph, but in sympathy — not to commemorate the defeat, but to predict the resurrection, of a fallen people! One thing is certain — we are sincere upon this occasion. There is truth in this compliment. For the first time in her career, Ireland has reason to be grateful to a foreign power. Foreign power, sir! Why should I designate that country a "foreign power," which has proved itself our sister country? England, they sometimes say, is our sister country. We deny the relationship — we discard it. We claim America as our sister, and claiming her as such, we have assembled here this night. Should a stranger, viewing this brilliant scene inquire of me, why it is that, amid the desolation of this day — whilst famine is in the land — whilst the hearse-plumes darken the summer scenery of the island, whilst death sows his harvest, and the earth teems not with the seeds of life, but with the seeds of corruption — should he inquire of me, why it is, that, amid this desolation, we hold high festival, hang out our banners, and thus carouse — I should reply, "Sir, the citizens of Dublin have met to pay a compliment to a plain citizen of America, which they would not pay — 'no, not for all the gold in Venice'”

Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) Irish nationalist & American politician

to the minister of England."
Ireland and America (1846)

Guity Novin photo
Jane Austen photo
Virat Kohli photo

“I would like to thank the crowd, it was unbelievable, the support helps you push through those tough times. You need challenges in every game, they improve you as a cricketers…I don't know what to say, I am overwhelmed by”

Virat Kohli (1988) Indian cricket player

After guiding India to the World T20 semifinals, quoted on sports.ndtv, "Virat Kohli Proves His Era Has Begun, After Guiding India Into World T20 Semifinals" http://sports.ndtv.com/icc-world-twenty20-2016/news/256920-virat-kohli-proves-his-era-has-begun-after-guiding-india-into-world-t20-semifinals, March 27, 2016.

Kent Hovind photo
Robert Bork photo
Catherine the Great photo

“The Governing Senate... has deemed it necessary to make known… that the landlords' serfs and peasants... owe their landlords proper submission and absolute obedience in all matters, according to the laws that have been enacted from time immemorial by the autocratic forefathers of Her Imperial Majesty and which have not been repealed, and which provide that all persons who dare to incite serfs and peasants to disobey their landlords shall be arrested and taken to the nearest government office, there to be punished forthwith as disturbers of the public tranquillity, according to the laws and without leniency. And should it so happen that even after the publication of the present decree of Her Imperial Majesty any serfs and peasants should cease to give the proper obedience to their landlords... and should make bold to submit unlawful petitions complaining of their landlords, and especially to petition Her Imperial Majesty personally, then both those who make the complaints and those who write up the petitions shall be punished by the knout and forthwith deported to Nerchinsk to penal servitude for life and shall be counted as part of the quota of recruits which their landlords must furnish to the army. And in order that people everywhere may know of the present decree, it shall be read in all the churches on Sundays and holy days for one month after it is received and therafter once every year during the great church festivals, lest anyone pretend ignorance.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Decree on Serfs (1767) as quoted in A Source Book for Russian History Vol. 2 (1972) by George Vernadsky

Peter Cook photo
Kate Bush photo

“This chapter says
"Put it out of your mind"
Mmm, give it time….”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Hugo Diemer photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The soul knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches.”

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

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History

“Did you ever figure to be living in a time when your check is good, but the bank bounces?”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Alison DaRosa (November 26, 1985) "Title: Alison DaRosa", Evening Tribune, Union-Tribune Publishing Co., p. B-1.
Attributed

Arjo Klamer photo
John B. Anderson photo

“The time has come to stop telling the American people only what they want them to hear, and start talking frankly about the sacrifices we must all make.”

John B. Anderson (1922–2017) American politician

As quoted in “Anderson Offers Barter: Ideas for Votes” by Bernard Weinraub, in The New York Times (12 March 1980)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Richard Miles (historian) photo

“The pessimist waits for better times, and expects to keep on waiting; the optimist goes to work with the best that is at hand now, and proceeds to create better times.”

Christian D. Larson (1874–1962) Prolific author of metaphysical and New Thought books

Source: Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapter 10, p. 155

Don Marquis photo

“there is always
a comforting thought
in time of trouble when
it is not our trouble”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

comforting thoughts
archy does his part (1935)

Arthur Sullivan photo

“We shall never know of the numbers of "mute and inglorious Miltons" who failed because the place and time were not ready for them…Was not Sullivan a jewel in the wrong setting?”

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) English composer of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Ralph Vaughan Williams National Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) p. 7
Criticism

Denis Diderot photo
Marshall Goldsmith photo
William Wordsworth photo

“We take no note of time but from its loss.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Actually Night I, lines 55-56 of Young's Night Thoughts.
Misattributed

Ethan Hawke photo

“We live in a funny time. If you don’t go corporate, you can’t compete. You’re relegated as irrelevant. People used to admire that. There used to be something badassed and poetic about it.”

Ethan Hawke (1970) American actor and writer

New York Magazine http://nymag.com/arts/theater/profiles/63419/ (2010-01-31)
2010–present

“I have very strongly this feeling… that our everyday life is at one and the same time banal, overfamiliar, platitudinous and yet mysterious and extraordinary.”

Bryan Magee (1930–2019) British politician

Heidegger and Modern Existentialism (1977), BBC Productions

Eric Hoffer photo
A.A. Milne photo

“It was just as if somebody inside him were saying, "Now then, Pooh, time for a little something."”

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Chapter Six.

John Vance Cheney photo
Thomas Gray photo

“But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 13
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Mr. T photo

“I got no time for the jibba-jabba.”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

Quotes from acting

Gore Vidal photo
Francis Escudero photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Samuel Butler photo
Woody Allen photo

“Time to fly away,
Gentlemen, please.
Fly away into the abyss,
Every night at 9 o'clock
We fly into the night once again!”

Jimmy Kennedy (1902–1984) Irish songwriter

Song Flying in the Night
Song lyrics

John Steinbeck photo

“I have owed you this letter for a very long time — but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Letter to his literary agent, found on his desk after his death in 1968
Writers at Work (1977)

“Like proselytization, desecrating and demolishing the temples of non-Muslims is also central to Islam…. India too suffered terribly as thousands of Hindu temples and sacred edifices disappeared in northern India by the time of Sikandar Lodi and Babur. Will Durant rightly laments in the Story of Civilization that "We can never know from looking at India today, what grandeur and beauty it once possessed". In Delhi, after the demolition of twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples, the materials of which were utilized to construct the Quwwat-ul-Islam masjid, it was after 700 years that the Birla Mandir could be constructed in 1930s. Sita Ram Goel has brought out two excellent volumes on Hindu Temples: What happened to them. These informative volumes give a list of Hindu shrines and their history of destruction in the medieval period on the basis of Muslim evidence itself. This of course does not cover all the shrines razed. Muslims broke temples recklessly. Those held in special veneration by Hindus like the ones at Somnath, Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura, were special targets of Muslims, and whenever the Hindus could manage to rebuild their shrines at these places, they were again destroyed by Muslim rulers. From the time of Mahmud of Ghazni who destroyed the temples at Somnath and Mathura to Babur who struck at Ayodhya to Aurangzeb who razed the temples at Kashi Mathura and Somnath, the story is repeated again and again.”

Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)

Peter Blake photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“No, no. Bill should play two or three more years. Talk to him. Tell him he can get in shape. I know he can play better second base than anybody. He is two years younger than I am. He is the greatest second baseman of all time, a real super star. But people forget too fast what he has done for the Pirates. Nobody I ever saw could field with him. He won the World Series with his home run against the Yankees. I don't like to see him retire.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Sidelights on Sports: Monday Morning's Sports Wash" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XOANAAAAIBAJ&sjid=u2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7387%2C128274 by Al Abrams, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Monday, October 2, 1972), p. 24
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
William Burges photo
Barney Frank photo
William Mulock photo