Quotes about time
page 74

Grandmaster Flash photo
Aristarchus of Samos photo

“Proposition 9. The diameter of the sun is greater than 18 times, but less than 20 times, the diameter of the moon.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

p, 125
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)
Variant: Proposition 7. The distance of the sun from the earth is greater than eighteen times, but less than twenty times, the distance of the moon from the earth.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. photo
Dave Attell photo
Harun Yahya photo
Anne Bradstreet photo

“Youth is the time of getting, middle age of improving, and old age of spending.”

Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) Anglo-American poet

3.
Meditations Divine and Moral (1664)

George W. Bush photo
Andrew Dickson White photo

“Sarva-dharma-samabhAva was unknown to mainstream Hinduism before Mahatma Gandhi presented it as one of the sixteen mahAvratas (great vows). in his booklet, MaNgala-PrabhAta. It is true that mainstream Hinduism had always stood for tolerance towards all metaphysical points of view and ways of worship except that which led to AtatAyI-AchAra (gangsterism). But that tolerance had never become samabhAva, equal respect for all points of view. The acharyas of the different schools of Sanatana Dharma were all along engaged in debates over differences in various approaches to Sreyas (the Great Good). No Buddhist acharya is known to have equated the way of the Buddha to that of the Gita and vice versa, for instance. It is also true that overawed by the armed might of Islam, and deceived by the tall talk of the sufis, some Hindu saints in medieval India had equated Rama with Rahim, Krishna with Karim, Kashi with Kaba, the Brahmana with the Mullah, pUjA with namAz, and so on. But, the sects founded by these saints had continued to function on the fringes of Hindu society while the mainstream followed the saints and acharyas who never recognized Islam as a dharma. In modern times also, movements like the Brahmo Samaj which recognised Islam and Christianity as dharmas had failed to influence mainstream Hinduism, while Maharshi Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda who upheld the Veda and despised the Bible and the Quran, had had a great impact. This being the hoary Hindu tradition, Mahatma Gandhi’s recognition of Christianity and Islam not only as dharmas but also as equal to Sanatana Dharma was fraught with great mischief. For, unlike the earlier Hindu advocates of Islam and Christianity as dharmas, Mahatma Gandhi made himself known and became known as belonging to mainstream Hinduism.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Iain Banks photo
János Esterházy photo
Angela Davis photo
Girish Raghunath Karnad photo

“When people all around us are slaughtered in the name of a temple (and masjid) I hear echoes from those times long past.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

Said while producing a picture called Tale danda on the subject of relationship of religion to politics.[Natesan Sharda Iyer, Musings on Indian Writing in English: Drama, http://books.google.com/books?id=e2_aFo5sAroC&pg=PA137, 1 January 2007, Sarup & Sons, 978-81-7625-801-2, 135]

David Morrison photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“Thinking and doing the opposite of what the majority is doing isn’t about being different for the sake of being different. There are lots of times when the well-trodden path is the right one to take. Your challenge is to know when it will be in your interest to do the opposite.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Fisher Ames photo
Aron Ra photo
Arlo Guthrie photo

“It's about the time I was riding my Motorcycle, going down a mountain road at 150 miles an hour, playing my guitar.”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Spoken during some performances of the Motorcycle song, on how he wrote the song. Found on recordings on "Arlo, Live in Sydney, and the Significance of the Pickle".

Shankar Dayal Sharma photo

“Pluralism has been central to India’s intellectual and spiritual heritage from ancient times. Respect for all religions and recognition of all religions as equally valid paths to truth constitute a national tradition.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

In:P.245.
Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001

Michael Moorcock photo
Zbigniew Brzeziński photo

“Benchmarks are targets that have to be fulfilled. They cannot be fulfilled in an indefinite period of time, so there are timetables in benchmarks.”

Zbigniew Brzeziński (1928–2017) Polish-American political scientist

PBS NewsHour, October 26, 2006 PBS Newshour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec06/iraq_10-25.html (2006). On the "benchmarks" used by George W. Bush.

Don Paterson photo
Alan Sugar photo

“But I've sat here four times, and there is a message coming from above…. not that I am a believer in the Lord or anything…. (Immediately before Jo Cameron's firing).”

Alan Sugar (1947) British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor

The Apprentice, Series 2

Carrie Fisher photo
Arlo Guthrie photo

“If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Arlo has repeatedly updated this part through the years to help it match modern life more. He has updated to say that if only one person does it, they say the person in question is a certain amount of years too late. He also referenced the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy during the 40th anniversary recording. He has also started adding the phrase, "And most of them would be too young to know what a movement was." once he says, "Friends they may think it's a movement."
Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Yves Klein photo
Douglas William Jerrold photo

“He is one of those wise philanthropists who in a time of famine would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.”

Douglas William Jerrold (1803–1857) English dramatist and writer

Douglas Jerrold's Wit, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Glen Cook photo
Amanda Wyss photo
Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac photo

“Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.”

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays

La solitude est certainement une belle chose, mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un qui sache répondre, à qui on puisse dire de temps en temps, que c'est un belle chose.
Dissertations chrétiennes et morales (1665), XVIII: "Les plaisirs de la vie retirée".

Patrick Stump photo
Louis Riel photo

“Deeds are not accomplished in a few days, or in a few hours. A century is only a spoke in the wheel of everlasting time.”

Louis Riel (1844–1885) Canadian politician

Quoted in The Montreal Weekly Star (22 August 1885), and War in the West : Voices of the 1885 Rebellion (1985) by Rudy Henry Wiebe and Bob Beal, p. 2

Noam Chomsky photo

“In Somalia, we know exactly what they had to gain because they told us. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, described this as the best public relations operation of the Pentagon that he could imagine. His picture, which I think is plausible, is that there was a problem about raising the Pentagon budget, and they needed something that would be, look like a kind of a cakewalk, which would give a lot of prestige to the Pentagon. Somalia looked easy. Let's look back at the background. For years, the United States had supported a really brutal dictator, who had just devastated the country, and was finally kicked out. After he's kicked out, it was 1990, the country sank into total chaos and disaster, with starvation and warfare and all kind of horrible misery. The United States refused to, certainly to pay reparations, but even to look. By the middle of 1992, it was beginning to ease. The fighting was dying down, food supplies were beginning to get in, the Red Cross was getting in, roughly 80% of their supplies they said. There was a harvest on the way. It looked like it was finally sort of settling down. At that point, all of a sudden, George Bush announced that he had been watching these heartbreaking pictures on television, on Thanksgiving, and we had to do something, we had to send in humanitarian aid. The Marines landed, in a landing which was so comical, that even the media couldn't keep a straight face. Take a look at the reports of the landing of the Marines, it must've been the first week of December 1992. They had planned a night, there was nothing that was going on, but they planned a night landing, so you could show off all the fancy new night vision equipment and so on. Of course they had called the television stations, because what's the point of a PR operation for the Pentagon if there's no one to look for it. So the television stations were all there, with their bright lights and that sort of thing, and as the Marines were coming ashore they were blinded by the television light. So they had to send people out to get the cameramen to turn off the lights, so they could land with their fancy new equipment. As I say, even the media could not keep a straight face on this one, and they reported it pretty accurately. Also reported the PR aspect. Well the idea was, you could get some nice shots of Marine colonels handing out peanut butter sandwiches to starving refugees, and that'd all look great. And so it looked for a couple of weeks, until things started to get unpleasant. As things started to get unpleasant, the United States responded with what's called the Powell Doctrine. The United States has an unusual military doctrine, it's one of the reasons why the U. S. is generally disqualified from peace keeping operations that involve civilians, again, this has to do with sovereignty. U. S. military doctrine is that U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat. That's not true for other countries. So countries like, say, Canada, the Fiji Islands, Pakistan, Norway, their soldiers are coming under threat all the time. The peace keepers in southern Lebanon for example, are being attacked by Israeli soldiers all the time, and have suffered plenty of casualties, and they don't like it. But U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat, so when Somali teenagers started shaking fists at them, and more, they came back with massive fire power, and that led to a massacre. According to the U. S., I don't know the actual numbers, but according to U. S. government, about 7 to 10 thousand Somali civilians were killed before this was over. There's a close analysis of all of this by Alex de Waal, who's one of the world's leading specialists on African famine and relief, altogether academic specialist. His estimate is that the number of people saved by the intervention and the number killed by the intervention was approximately in the same ballpark. That's Somalia. That's what's given as a stellar example of the humanitarian intervention.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Responding to the question, "what did the United States have to gain by intervening in Somalia?", regarding Operation Provide Relief/Operation Restore Hope/Battle of Mogadishu.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999

Colin Wilson photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Bernard Lewis photo
Baba Hari Dass photo

“A: To get out of the rut is not one day's job or one hour in a day or going to temples, churches or mosques on particular days. We have to reflect on all our thoughts all the time”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Miscellaneous

Richard Garriott photo
Linus Torvalds photo
John Mayer photo

“It was so frightening at the time to be seventeen and have heart monitors hooked up to you. That was the moment the songwriter in me was born. I discovered a whole other side of me. I came home that night and started writing lyrics. I discovered it all at once: It was like opening up a lockbox, and inside was a depth that I didn't even know I had as a person, or a writer — incredible creativity and vision and neurosis, complete neurosis. They all go together in a package.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

On the effects of having a critical cardiac arrhythmia at age 17
Hiatt, Brian (2006-09-21), "My Big Mouth Strikes Again" http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/11515443/john_mayer_speaks_listen_to_his_hilarious_takes_on_paris_hilton_brad__angelina_living_in_ny. Rolling Stone. (1009): 66-70

Aaron Ramsey photo

“That was top football. It was all one touch, the ball was perfect into the player they were passing to and the first time finish with his right foot was great. Our philosophy is to play football like that and get the ball down and play fast one or two touch football.”

Aaron Ramsey (1990) Welsh association football player

(Published 20 October 2013 on the Arsenal Website http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/ramsey-it-was-breathtaking-at-times) Ramsey (EPL Player of the Month in September 2013) praising teammate Jack Wilshere's sublime 18th minute opener in a breathtaking 4-1 win over Norwich City at the Emirates Stadium. Newcomer Mesut Özil scored a brace while a wonderful individual effort from Rambo himself, coming on as a 38th minute substitute for the concussed Mathieu Flamini, saw the Gunners return to the top of the Premier League in October 2013

Tom Petty photo

“And no I can't find no reason to explain the way that I feel.
I remember things being more clearer, at one time things were more real.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

All Mixed Up
Lyrics, Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) (1987)

Edwin Abbott Abbott photo
David Icke photo
Richard Cobden photo
N. K. Jemisin photo

“So, there was a girl.
What I’ve guessed, and what the history books imply, is that she was unlucky enough to have been sired by a cruel man. He beat both wife and daughter and abused them in other ways. Bright Itempas is called, among other things, the god of justice. Perhaps that was why He responded when she came into His temple, her heart full of unchildlike rage.
“I want him to die,” she said (or so I imagine). “Please Great Lord, make him die.”
You know the truth now about Itempas. He is a god of warmth and light, which we think of as pleasant, gentle things. I once thought of Him that way, too. But warmth uncooled burns; light undimmed can hurt even my blind eyes. I should have realized. We should all have realized. He was never what we wanted Him to be.
So when the girl begged the Bright Lord to murder her father, He said, “Kill him yourself.” And He gifted her with a knife perfectly suited to her small, weak child’s hands.
She took the knife home and used it that very night. The next day, she came back to the Bright Lord, her hands and soul stained red, happy for the first time in her short life. “I will love you forever,” she declared. And He, for a rare once, found Himself impressed by mortal will.
Or so I imagine.
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.”

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 11 “Possession” (watercolor) (pp. 202-203)

Dave Keon photo

“Most kids today slap the puck. The backhand takes time to learn. It's not something you do naturally. But it is an effective shot.”

Dave Keon (1940) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Dave Keon," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198602.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2002-04-15)

João Magueijo photo
Bill Hicks photo
Ray Bradbury photo

“But it is not time for me to die; I have not yet finished my life's work.”

Jan Burgers (1895–1981) Dutch physicist

Source: a little time before his death, as quoted by A. J. Q. Alkemade, in [Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, 1982, http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/bwn5/burgers]

Boris Yeltsin photo

“One could see that what you are writing was that today's meeting with President Bill Clinton was going to be a disaster. Now, for the first time, I can tell you that you are a disaster.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

Speaking to the press following a "postively productive" meeting http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=50688 with Bill Clinton (24 October 1995)
Alternative translation: those anticipating a failure of the meeting "have failed" ("вы провалились").
1990s

John Adams photo
James Burke (science historian) photo
Kurt Schwitters photo
Eugéne Ionesco photo
Marina Tsvetaeva photo
Richard J. Evans photo

“The fact that the mean recurrence time is infinite implies that the chance fluctuations in an individual prolonged coin-tossing game are far removed from the familiar pattern governed by the normal distribution.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter XIII, Recurrent Events. Renewal Theory. p. 314.

John C. Dvorak photo

“[A]s for my prediction that [the iPhone] would be a bad idea for Apple to pursue, anything can still happen. Time is a cruel mistress.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

"Wrong? Dvorak blames his 'getting screwed over' by Apple" in NetworkWorld (27 June 2012) http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/wrong-dvorak-blames-getting-screwed-over-apple
2010s

Jack Herer photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Jean-Paul Marat photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Tove Jansson photo
Kenneth Grahame photo
Vitruvius photo
Joe Strummer photo
Bertolt Brecht photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Jerome Frank photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Lev Leviev photo

“I know that I have my own mission and I know that life, unfortunately, is short. I have a limited time, and we have to get as much done as possible, and that’s that. And we have to preserve our health.”

Lev Leviev (1956) Soviet-born Israeli businessman, philanthropist and investor

Interview, Jewish Chronicle, 7 March 2008 http://thejc.com/home.aspx?AId58607&ATypeId1&searchtrue2&srchstrLev%20leviev&srchtxt1&srchhead1&srchauthor1&srchsandp1&scsrch0

Ben Harper photo

“Every time feels like my first time. And I just find that the process of it feeds into one's own self-obsession.”

Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician

About interviews
Ben Harper Interview http://music.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=90631, MusicFix (February 14, 2006).

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Paul Volcker photo
Roger Ebert photo
Paul Krugman photo

“When the economy is in a depression, scarcity ceases to rule. Productive resources sit idle, so that it is possible to have more of some things without having less of others; free lunches are all around. As a result, all the usual rules of economics are stood on their head; we enter a looking-glass world in which virtue is vice and prudence is folly. Thrift hurts our future prospects; sound money makes us poorer. Moreover, that's the kind of world we have been living in for the past several years, which means that it is a kind of world that students should understand. […] Depression economics is marked by paradoxes, in which seemingly virtuous actions have perverse, harmful effects. Two paradoxes in particular stand out: the paradox of thrift, in which the attempt to save more actually leads to the nation as a whole saving less, and the less-well-known paradox of flexibility, in which the willingness of workers to protect their jobs by accepting lower wages actually reduces total employment. […] In times of depression, the rules are different. Conventionally sound policy – balanced budgets, a firm commitment to price stability – helps to keep the economy depressed. Once again, this is not normal. Most of the time we are not in a depression. But sometimes we are – and 2013, when this chapter was written, was one of those times.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

“Depressions are Different”, in Robert M. Solow, ed. Economics for the Curious: Inside the Minds of 12 Nobel Laureates. 2014.

“Man cannot pretend to be higher in ethics, spirituality, advancement, or civilization than other creatures and at the same time live by lower standards than the vulture or hyena … The Pillars of Ahimsa indisputably represent the clearest, surest path out of the jungle, and toward the attainment of that highly desirable goal.”

H. Jay Dinshah (1933–2000) American proponent of veganism and Jain ethics

Out of the Jungle (1967); as quoted in Victoria Moran, Compassion, the Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration of Veganism (Wellingborough: Thorsons, 1985), p. 32.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Alex Salmond photo
Assata Shakur photo
Markiplier photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Richard Cobden photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Thomas Moore photo

“If thou would'st have me sing and play
As once I play'd and sung,
First take this time-worn lute away,
And bring one freshly strung.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

If Thou would'st have Me sing and play.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Daniel Handler photo
Joseph Gurney Cannon photo
Christiaan Huygens photo

“…the power of this line [the cycloid] to measure time.”

Horologium Oscillatorium (1673) as quoted by Joella G. Yoder, "Christiaan Huygens, Book on the Pendulum Clock" in Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics 1640-1940 ed., Ivor Grattan-Guinness (2005)