Quotes about time
page 93

August Macke photo
Alphonse de Lamartine photo
Paul Graham photo
Gordon Brown photo

“What has become clear is that Britain cannot trust the Conservatives to run the economy. Everyone knows that I'm all in favour of apprenticeships, but let me tell you this is no time for a novice.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Speech at the Labour Party conference http://www.labour.org.uk/gordon_brown_conference, 23 September 2008.
Prime Minister

Terrell Owens photo

“I think T. O. is the ultimate right now in the league as far as being able to make plays. Every time he touches the ball, he is capable of doing something special with it.”

Terrell Owens (1973) former American football wide receiver

Jeff Garcia — reported in Mike Triplett (November 22, 2001) "Owens receives his team's vote", The Sacramento Bee, p. C8.
About

Dick Cheney photo

“We haven't really had the time yet to pore through all those records in Baghdad. We'll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Interview with Rocky Mountain News, January 2004 http://web.archive.org/web/20040213072434/http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/politics/article/0,1299,DRMN_35_2565269,00.html
2000s, 2004

Tom Petty photo
Scott Shaw photo
Kamal Haasan photo
Rand Paul photo

“Robert Siegel: You've said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone, and that the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an overreach by the federal government. Would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?Rand Paul: What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.Robert Siegel: But are you saying that had you been around at the time, you would have hoped that you would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater against the 1964 Civil Rights Act?Rand Paul: Well, actually, I think it's confusing on a lot of cases with what actually was in the civil rights case because, see, a lot of the things that actually were in the bill, I'm in favor of. I'm in favor of everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So I think there's a lot to be desired in the civil rights. And to tell you the truth, I haven't really read all through it because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue in the campaign, on whether we're going to vote for the Civil Rights Act.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

Rand Paul Says He Has A Tea Party 'Mandate'
All Things Considered
National Public Radio
2010-05-19
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126985068

Hema Malini photo
Bob Seger photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Pete Doherty photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, N. J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.
It was on television. I saw it. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don't like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.”

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

21 November 2015 speech in Birmingham Alabama, then next-day reply to George Stephanopoulos, according to 22 November 2015 PolitiFact article https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/22/donald-trump/fact-checking-trumps-claim-thousands-new-jersey-ch/
2010s, 2015

Alexander H. Stephens photo

“The leading public men of the South, in our early history, were almost all against it. Jefferson was against it. This I freely admit, when the authority of their names is cited. It was a question which they did not, and perhaps could not, thoroughly understand at that time.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

Regarding the views of the U.S. Founding Fathers and their opposition to slavery https://archive.org/details/orationsandaddr03curtgoog, retirement speech (June 1859), as quoted in Lincoln's Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents https://books.google.com/books?id=jNm1AvQpGnIC&pg=PA27&dq=%22The+leading+public+men+of+the+South%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzqJHkj7rLAhVBKB4KHWKQCssQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20leading%20public%20men%20of%20the%20South%22&f=false, by Thomas E. Schneider, p. 27
1850s

Ben Jonson photo

“Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,—
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This epitaph is generally ascribed to Ben Jonson. It appears in the editions of his Works; but in a manuscript collection of Browne's poems preserved amongst the Lansdowne MS. No. 777, in the British Museum, it is ascribed to Browne, and awarded to him by Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of Browne's poems.

Lawrence M. Schoen photo

““So you’re saying, people not only may not want to hear a thing that’s true, that sometimes they make sure other people can’t either?”
“Yeah. Not all people, and not all the time, but yeah.””

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 7, “Parental Disappointment” (p. 85)

Jimmy Stewart photo

“I've sort of gotten into the habit of looking for the vulnerable guy, the guy who makes mistakes, the guy who can't figure things out all the time but keeps at it.”

Jimmy Stewart (1908–1997) American film and stage actor

On roles he looks for, as quoted in "Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart dead at 89" at CNN (2 July 1997) http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9707/02/stewart.obit.7p/

Arshile Gorky photo
Michel De Montaigne photo
Chinmayananda Saraswati photo
Audrey Niffenegger photo
James Hudson Taylor photo

“If you expect to continue learning all your life, you will be teaching yourself much of the time. You must learn to learn, especially the difficult topic of mathematics.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)

Donald J. Trump photo

“We have to be tough. It's time we're going to be a little bit tough, folks. We're taken advantage by every nation in the world, virtually. It's not going to happen any more.”

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

White House suggests US may still accept Australia refugees despite clash https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/donald-trump-australia-refugees-malcolm-turnbull-phone-call (2 February 2017)
2010s, 2017, February

Matthew Hayden photo
Neil Gorsuch photo
A. James Gregor photo
Gordon B. Hinckley photo

“The best thing you can do is just keep busy, keep working hard, so you’re not dwelling on it all the time. Work is the best antidote for sorrow.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Discussing the death of his wife with Larry King, 2004.

Sara García photo

“Spanish for, Ask me to talk about Mexican cinema? is like requesting my autobiography, what i have not lived, what i have not seen, and in how many different ways have you seen me? without going any further tender as in "La gallina clueca", tearful as in "Cuando los hijos se van", sweet as in "El baisano Jalil", and energetic and dominant and at the same time affectionate as in "Los tres García" you have seen me very alive and very dead”

Sara García (1895–1980) Mexican actress

Pedirme a mi que hable del cine Mexicano? es como solicitar mi autobiografía, que no habré vivido, que no habré visto, y de cuantas maneras distintas me han visto a mi? sin ir mas lejos tierna como en "La gallina clueca", llorosa como en "Cuando los hijos se van", dulce como en "El baisano Jalil", y enérgica y dominante y al mismo tiempo cariñosa como en "Los tres García" me han visto muy viva y muy muerta.
Sara answering when she was told to talk about Mexican cinema. Doña Sara Garcia habla del Cine Mexicano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXlz7AznYxA

Frederick Winslow Taylor photo
Joseph Strutt photo
John McCain photo

“I think if you look at the overall record and millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that there's been great progress economically over that period of time. But that's no comfort. That's no comfort to families now that are facing these tremendous economic challenges. But let me just add, Peter, the fundamentals of America's economy are strong.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Interview with Peter Cook on Bloomberg TV http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/john_mccain_on_bloomberg_tv.html regarding economic progress during the Bush administration, 17 April 2008
2000s, 2008

John F. Kennedy photo

“…what really counts is not the immediate act of courage or of valor, but those who bear the struggle day in and day out — not the sunshine patriots but those who are willing to stand for a long period of time.”

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

"Remarks at the White House to Members of the American Legion (70)" (1 March 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
1962

Kenneth Grahame photo
James Allen photo
Charles de Gaulle photo

“The desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the dominant and contradictory passions of the French of all times.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Le désir du privilège et le goût de l'égalité, passions dominantes et contradictoires des Français de toute époque.
in La France et son armée.
Writings

Ethan Hawke photo
Pete Doherty photo
Wallace Stevens photo

“Of these beginnings, gay and green, propose
The suitable amours. Time will write them down.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

Pete Doherty photo
Ken Ham photo
Joseph Heller photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Nancy Grace photo

“Playing that music delivered me from the pressures of my life. I played with my eyes closed and found that my backaches ceased and my headaches would go. The response to that rhythm was "My God, this makes me feel good." I never really remembered having that much fun with it before or thought about jazz making me feel good. But, at 46, it suddenly dawned on me that my body had priorities that my mind didn't allow, and I decided to (play Latin/jazz)✱ for myself and started having a helluva fine time.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "He Arranges, Composes, Performs: Fischer: A Renaissance Man Of Music" http://articles.latimes.com/1987-05-14/entertainment/ca-8949_1_clare-fischer.
<center><sup>✱</sup> The parenthetical addition is Zan Stewart's; exactly what it's replacing – whether simply filling a space, or replacing an unintelligible word or two – is not revealed.</center>

Margaret Sanger photo
Fred Astaire photo
Julian of Norwich photo

“Every woman I knew secretly longed to have many lovers but she stopped herself for so many reasons. I had the capacity to love many at a time and for this had been called shallow and wayward and a good-time girl…”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

She wrote in "Timepass: The Memoir of Protima Bedi" quoted in She had a lust for life, 5 February 2000, The Tribune http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000205/windows/above.htm,

George Mikes photo
Zakir Hussain (musician) photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“That is why we give to children a proverb, or that which the Greeks call Chreia, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more. For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself. He should make such maxims and not memorize them. For it is disgraceful even for an old man, or one who has sighted old age, to have a note-book knowledge. "This is what Zeno said." But what have you yourself said? "This is the opinion of Cleanthes." But what is your own opinion? How long shall you march under another man's orders? Take command, and utter some word which posterity will remember. Put forth something from your own stock.”
Ideo pueris et sententias ediscendas damus et has quas Graeci chrias vocant, quia complecti illas puerilis animus potest, qui plus adhuc non capit. Certi profectus viro captare flosculos turpe est et fulcire se notissimis ac paucissimis vocibus et memoria stare: sibi iam innitatur. Dicat ista, non teneat; turpe est enim seni aut prospicienti senectutem ex commentario sapere. 'Hoc Zenon dixit': tu quid? 'Hoc Cleanthes': tu quid? Quousque sub alio moveris? impera et dic quod memoriae tradatur, aliquid et de tuo profer.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXXIII

Marcel Duchamp photo
Lee Smolin photo
K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera photo

“Intellectuals tend to spend too much of their valuable time in study, critical analysis and debate. They usually have little or no time for practice.”

K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera (1919–2006) Sri Lankan Buddhist monk

"Is Buddhism a Theory of a Philosophy?"
What Buddhists Believe (1993)

Fritjof Capra photo

“The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.”

Fritjof Capra (1939) American physicist

Source: The Web of Life (1996), p. 3; As cited in: Michael C. Jackson (2000) Systems Approaches to Management. p. 5.

Harry Chapin photo
Anthony Bourdain photo
Alfie Kohn photo
Lawrence M. Schoen photo
Gebran Tueni photo

“It is time for us to put an end to our fear for which we paid a very heavy price, to face all the lies of the Syrian security regime.”

Gebran Tueni (1957–2005) journalist

Dec. 1, 2005, editorial in An-Nahar.
Attributed

Connie Willis photo
Mr. Lawrence photo
David Icke photo
George Hendrik Breitner photo

“.. A market, a quay, a river. a gang of soldiers.... is just as good and more history than 'The cousins of Spinoza are visiting him accompanied by their mamma'. O! if I could say some time as Munkaczy: 'I painted almost everything I dreamed when I was 12 years old'. He can tell this, the man which I love as the greatest painter, whatever they may say here [in The Hague]. I hope that you once may see a true painting of me, not one of the many I shall have to make and which are [only] something, but a truly grandiose thing. All wasted fire.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) ..Een markt een kaai een rivier. een bende soldaten.. ..is net zoo goed en meer geschiedenis dan 'De nichtjes van Spinoza komen hem bezoeken vergezeld door hunne mamma'. O! dat ik nog eens kon zeggen als Munkaczy: ik heb bijna alles geschilderd wat ik droomde toen ik 12 jaar was. dat kan hij zeggen hem die ik voor de grootste schilder hou wat ze hier ook mogen zeggen. Ik hoop dat U nog eens een waar schilderij van me moogt zien, niet een van de velen die ik zal moeten maken en ook wel iets is, maar iets waarachtigsch grootsch. Allemaal verspild vuur.
quote of Breitner in a letter to his Maecenas A.P. van Stolk, 28 March 1882; original text in RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/597
before 1890

David Cronenberg photo
Václav Havel photo

“There used to be a time when this country's president could have delivered the same New Year's Address he had given a year before, and nobody would have noticed.
Fortunately, that time has passed.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

St. Vincent (musician) photo
Johan Huizinga photo
Suzanne Ciani photo

“It had to go all the way out to the west coast and come all the way back to the east coast every time it needed to be fixed.”

Suzanne Ciani (1946) Italian American composer and musician

"INTERVIEW: Suzanne Ciani...," (2014)

Vanessa L. Williams photo
Gerhard Richter photo
Wendell Berry photo

“To be sane in a mad time
is bad for the brain, worse
for the heart.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"The Mad Farmer Manifesto: The First Amendment" in The Country of Marriage (1973).
Poems

Claude Elwood Shannon photo

“A few first rate research papers are preferable to a large number that are poorly conceived or half-finished. The latter are no credit to their writers and a waste of time to their readers.”

Claude Elwood Shannon (1916–2001) American mathematician and information theorist

IRE Transactions on Information Theory (1956), volume 2, issue 1, page 3. * The Bandwagon
Shannon
Claude E.
2
1
1956
March
10.1109/TIT.1956.1056774.

Malcolm Muggeridge photo
Nicholas Murray Butler photo
David Eugene Smith photo
George William Curtis photo

“The slavery debate has been really a death-struggle from that moment. Mr. Clay thought not. Mr. Clay was a shrewd politician, but the difference between him and Calhoun was the difference between principle and expediency. Calhoun's sharp, incisive genius has engraved his name, narrow but deep, upon our annals. The fluent and facile talents of Clay in a bold, large hand wrote his name in honey upon many pages. But time is already licking it away. Henry Clay was our great compromiser. That was known, and that was the reason why Mr. Buchanan's story of a bargain with J. Q. Adams always clung to Mr. Clay. He had compromised political policies so long that he had forgotten there is such a thing as political principle, which is simply a name for the moral instincts applied to government. He did not see that when Mr. Calhoun said he should return to the Constitution he took the question with him, and shifted the battle-ground from the low, poisonous marsh of compromise, where the soldiers never know whether they are standing on land or water, to the clear, hard height of principle. Mr. Clay had his omnibus at the door to roll us out of the mire. The Whig party was all right and ready to jump in. The Democratic party was all right. The great slavery question was going to be settled forever. The bushel-basket of national peace and plenty and prosperity was to be heaped up and run over. Mr. Pierce came all the way from the granite hills of New Hampshire, where people are supposed to tell the truth, to an- nounce to a happy country that it was at peace — that its bushel-basket was never so overflowingly full before. And then what? Then the bottom fell out. Then the gentlemen in the national rope -walk at Washington found they had been busily twining a rope of sand to hold the country together. They had been trying to compromise the principles of human justice, not the percentage of a tariff; the instincts of human nature and consequently of all permanent government, and the conscience of the country saw it. Compromises are the sheet-anchor of the Union — are they? As the English said of the battle of Bunker Hill, that two such victories would ruin their army, so two such sheet- anchors as the Compromise of 1850 would drag the Union down out of sight forever.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Nguyen Khanh photo
Adam Smith photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo

“(…)The body-mind is like a room. It is there, but I need not live in it all the time.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Body
Source: I am That, P.153.

Oliver Lodge photo
Donald Ervin Knuth photo
John Wesley photo

“As to the word itself, it is generally allowed to be of Greek extraction. But whence the Greek word, enthousiasmos, is derived, none has yet been able to show. Some have endeavoured to derive it from en theoi, in God; because all enthusiasm has reference to him. … It is not improbable, that one reason why this uncouth word has been retained in so many languages was, because men were not better agreed concerning the meaning than concerning the derivation of it. They therefore adopted the Greek word, because they did not understand it: they did not translate it into their own tongues, because they knew not how to translate it; it having been always a word of a loose, uncertain sense, to which no determinate meaning was affixed.
It is not, therefore, at all surprising, that it is so variously taken at this day; different persons understanding it in different senses, quite inconsistent with each other. Some take it in a good sense, for a divine impulse or impression, superior to all the natural faculties, and suspending, for the time, either in whole or in part, both the reason and the outward senses. In this meaning of the word, both the Prophets of old, and the Apostles, were proper enthusiasts; being, at divers times, so filled with the Spirit, and so influenced by Him who dwelt in their hearts, that the exercise of their own reason, their senses, and all their natural faculties, being suspended, they were wholly actuated by the power of God, and “spake” only “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Others take the word in an indifferent sense, such as is neither morally good nor evil: thus they speak of the enthusiasm of the poets; of Homer and Virgil in particular. And this a late eminent writer extends so far as to assert, there is no man excellent in his profession, whatsoever it be, who has not in his temper a strong tincture of enthusiasm. By enthusiasm these appear to understand, all uncommon vigour of thought, a peculiar fervour of spirit, a vivacity and strength not to be found in common men; elevating the soul to greater and higher things than cool reason could have attained.
But neither of these is the sense wherein the word “enthusiasm” is most usually understood. The generality of men, if no farther agreed, at least agree thus far concerning it, that it is something evil: and this is plainly the sentiment of all those who call the religion of the heart “enthusiasm.” Accordingly, I shall take it in the following pages, as an evil; a misfortune, if not a fault. As to the nature of enthusiasm, it is, undoubtedly a disorder of the mind; and such a disorder as greatly hinders the exercise of reason. Nay, sometimes it wholly sets it aside: it not only dims but shuts the eyes of the understanding. It may, therefore, well be accounted a species of madness; of madness rather than of folly: seeing a fool is properly one who draws wrong conclusions from right premisses; whereas a madman draws right conclusions, but from wrong premisses. And so does an enthusiast suppose his premisses true, and his conclusions would necessarily follow. But here lies his mistake: his premisses are false. He imagines himself to be what he is not: and therefore, setting out wrong, the farther he goes, the more he wanders out of the way.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"
Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)

W. Brian Arthur photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo