Quotes about hour
page 8

“The savage, rocky shores of Christmas Island, 200 miles south of Java, in the Indian Ocean. It's November, the moon is in its third quarter, and the sun is just setting. And in a few hours from now, on this very shore, a thousand million lives will be launched.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Opening words
The Trials of Life (1990)

Sun, Christmas

“Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. 'Experience! More experience!' I clamored. In a frantic effort to arrive at some kind of order, some tentative working program, I would sit down quietly now and then and spend long, long hours mapping out a plan of procedure. Plans, such as architects and engineers sweat over, were never my forte. But I could always visualize my dreams in a cosmogonic pattern. Though I could never formulate a plot I could balance and weigh opposing forces, characters, situations, events, distribute them in a sort of heavenly lay-out, always with plenty of space between, always with the certitude that there is no end, only worlds within worlds ad infinitum, and that wherever one left off one had created a world, a world finite, total, complete.”

Henry Miller book Plexus

The Rosy Crucifixion II : Plexus (1953)

Life, World, Dreams, Reality

“Sheep are especially sensitive to the exact moment of the turn of the tide. In this game, nine tethered sheep react, pull on the stakes, jolt the chairs and rattle the tea-cups. Bets are taken on the combined sensitivity of any three lines of sheep -- read vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Since there are normally three tide-turns every twenty-four hours, it is normal practice to take the best of three results. Reliable clocks, calendars, and time-tables are used to determine the accuracy of the sheep's forecast.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Drowning By Numbers

Game, Time, Reading, Tea

“The narrow way, the way of holiness, not only leads to life, but it is life. Walking there, serene are our days, peaceful our nights, happy — high above the disorders and miseries of a wretched world—shall be our hourly communion with God; happy — full of assurance, of calm and sacred triumph, shall be our dying hour.”

Richard Fuller (minister) (1804–1876) United States Baptist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 316.

Life, God, Happiness, World

“I feel a great deal of sympathy for the families of the four brave Americans that we lost at Benghazi. And I certainly can’t even imagine the grief that she has for losing her son, but she’s wrong. She’s absolutely wrong. I and everybody in the administration, all the people she named, the president, the vice president, Susan Rice, we were scrambling to get information that was changing, literally by the hour. And when we had information, we made it public. But then sometimes we had to go back and say we have new information that contradicts it. So I testified for 11 hours. … We have captured one of the lead terrorists and he admits it was both a terrorist attack and it was influenced by the video. This was fog of war. This was complicated. The most effective, comprehensive reports and studies demonstrate that. … I deeply regret that we lost four Americans. And I of course sympathize with members of the families who are still, you know, very much grieving. And I wish that there could be an easy answer at the time, but we learned a lot, and the intelligence kept improving, and we learned enough to say what we think happened at Benghazi.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

War, People, Family, Feeling

“Every man's life (and … every woman's life), awaits the hour of blossoming that makes it immortal … love is a divinity above all accidents, and guards his own with extraordinary obstinacy.”

Eleanor Farjeon book Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1922)

Love, Life

“The highway construction truck tore up the street at forty miles an hour.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

Source: Lies, Inc. (1984), Chapter 12 (p. 132)

“The finest woman in nature should not detain me an hour from you; but you must sometimes suffer the rivalship of the wisest men.”

Richard Steele (1672–1729) British politician

17 September 1712
Letters to His Wife (1707-1712)

Men, Nature, Suffering

“[R]adical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism. The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the Bamiyan Buddhas, it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty, elegance and grace. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone or steel. They had to be destroyed. This worship of death and destruction is a nihilism of a ferocity unlike any since the Nazis burned books, then art, then whole peoples. Goebbels would have marvelled at the recruitment tape for al Qaeda, a two-hour orgy of blood and death: image after image of brutalized Muslims shown in various poses of victimization, followed by glorious images of desecration of the infidel-mutilated American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of the USS Cole, mangled bodies at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2000s, 2001, The Enemy is not Islam. It is Nihilism (2001)

Death, People, Books, World

“… we have a situation in which millions of vehicles, each a miracle of often unnecssary complication, are hurtling in all directions under the impulse of anything up to 200 horsepower. Many of them are the size of small houses and contain a couple of tons of sophisticated alloys — yet often carry a single passenger. They can travel at a hundred miles an hour, but are lucky if they average forty. In one lifetime they have consumed more irreplaceable fuel than has been used in the whole previous history of mankind. The roads to support them, inadequate though they are, cost as much as a small war; the analogy is a good one, for the casualties are on the same scale.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Source: 1970s, Chapter 3 (The Future of Transport) in Profiles of the Future (7th printing, 1972)

War, Travel, History, Support

“Hours then of blasphemy and fury and debate, all in the theological terms that seem shocking to the literate citizens today, who believe in God but just don't care to mention him or any of the other lowly friends they knew before they went to Yale.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 6

God

“At what hour, please? retort to Victor Cousin, after he claimed he could pinpoint the start of the (perceived) decay of the French language: 1978.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

À quelle heure, s'il vous plaît?
Choses vues 1830-1846, Séance du 23 Novembre 1843

“The modern young man,' said Aunt Dahlia, 'is a congenital idiot and wants a nurse to lead him by the hand and some strong attendant to kick him regularly at intervals of a quarter of an hour.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

Strong

“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".

Mountain, Time

“I remain detached and distant, but it is under my eyes and my orders that the work of art must create itself [Klein directed on 9 March 1960 for the first time nude models who were painting the walls with their moving naked bodies, he called this "Anthropometry"]. Then, when the creation starts, I stand there, present at the ceremony, immaculate, calm, relaxed, perfectly aware of what is going on and ready to welcome the work of art that is coming into existence in the tangible world... Hours of preparation for something that is executed, with extreme precision, in a few minutes. Just as with a judo throw.”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

In 1960; pp. 55-57
1960 -1964, "Yves Klein, 1928 – 1962, Selected Writings"

World, Art, Distant, Time

“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

Time

“Punk: Because here is the truth about Las Vegas, here is the truth about the WWE is that it doesn't matter that if you're the best wrestler, it doesn't matter if you're the best talker, it doesn't matter if you're the best overall performer, it doesn't matter if you make the two clowns sitting to my left on commentary look like amateur hour. There is a glass ceiling and nobody is allowed to break it. That's the simple story of this place. The more popular you are, the more money you make. The more you people cheer for any given superstar, the more opportunities you're afforded. Why do you think a guy like John Cena, who has admittedly had the worst year of his career, gets title shot after title shot after title shot after title shot? Or why a lethal grappler, why a serious submission specialist like Daniel Bryan puts a smile on his face and settles himself, belittles himself with catchphrases. Or why a 400 pound monster, Brodus Clay, soils his hands by touching your filthy, ugly, little children to get in the ring so he can shuck and jive for you. Or why an invisible child, Little Jimmy, is better positioned on the flagship show Monday Night RAW than a workhorse like Tyson Kidd.”

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

WWE Raw

Money, Children, People, Truth

“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

Time

“You may wonder why I have talked of government, and of the League of Nations, instead of spending all my hour on leadership in industry. I have done it deliberately, because it seems to me a fact of very great significance that we are finding the same trend in all these different fields. It reinforces us in our conviction that we are moving in harmony with the deeper and more vital forces of human progress.”

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) American academic

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xxiv

“I know a lovely little flower, a flower for which I pine —
I would go gather it, but bars my heavy hours confine;
Oh, grief, when free, how easily that little flower was mine!
...
Oh, were I sinking to the grave I often ask in vain,
And welcome Death stood by to loose the wasted captive's chain —
Ah, name me the Forget-me-not, I'd wake to life again!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette (3rd January 1835) Versions from the German (First Series.) - 'The Lovely Little Flower' — Goethe.
Translations, From the German

Love, Life, Death, Flowers

“Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement; and if a story is told of more than common interest, ennui is sure to have its joy in adding embellishments. If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal?”

George Bancroft (1800–1891) American historian and statesman

"Ennui", p. 64
Literary and Historical Miscellanies (1855)

Truth, Joy, Dependency

“One time me and three friends dropped acid and drove around in my dad's car. He has one of those talking cars, we're tripping, and the car goes, "The door is ajar." We pulled over and thought about that for 12 hours. "How can a door be a jar?" … "Why would they put a jar on a car?" … "Oh man, the freeway's melting!"”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

… "Put it in the jar."
Dangerous (1990)

Cars, Time

“Syd was a genius. But I wouldn't want to go back to playing Interstellar Overdrive for hours and hours.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

Q Magazine, November 1992
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett

“It was, I saw, a flat to get out of rather than one to stay in. It was a machine for eating and sleeping in, a suitable dwelling place for a working woman, whose main interest is in her work. I disliked this version of myself, which seemed to negate my other activities, reduced them to after-hours amusements, whereas I had always thought them pretty central. These mute, white walls had been silent witnesses to many encounters; nevertheless, they withheld comment, and their very withholding struck me as unfriendly. Unheimlich was the word which came to mind when I stood on the threshold of my bedroom.”

Anita Brookner (1928–2016) British novelist and art historian.

A Friend From England (1987)

Sleep

“They were now as a party engaged in carrying laboriously uphill the last few columns out of the Gladstonian quarry. … Foremost among the tasks of Liberalism in the near future was the regeneration of rural life and the emancipation of the land of this country from the paralysing grip of an effete and unprofitable system. … [The reports into rural life] were startling. When they were published they would prove conclusively that there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men, women, and children dependent upon the land in this country and engaged in cultivating it, hardworking men and women, who were living under conditions with regard to wages, to housing, as well as hours of labour—conditions which ought to make this great Empire hang its head in shame that such things could be permitted to happen in any corner of its vast dominions, let alone in this country, the centre and source of all its glory.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the National Liberal Club (31 January 1913), quoted in The Times (1 February 1913), p. 8.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Life, Women, Men, Children

“The key intellectual event is a lecture or a formal debate, a period of time when one individual holds the floor to deliver a sustained argument on a particular topic. This is different from the give-and-take of sociable conversations, which typically cannot reach any complex or abstract level because the focus shifts too often. Intellectuals giving their attention for half an hour or more to one viewpoint, developed as a unified stream of discourse, are thereby elevating the topic into a larger, more encompassing sacred object than the little fragmentary tokens of ordinary sociable ties.”

Randall Collins (1941) American sociologist

Source: The Sociology of Philosophies (1998), p. 26

Time

“Wait for the appointed hour.”

Iamblichus (240–320) Syrian philosopher

As quoted in The Lives of the Sophists by Eunapius ( online exerpt http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Friends/Iamblichus/index.htm)

Waiting

“Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold consolations, if there be no employment.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

From the speech "Plymouth, Labor Day" (1 September 1919), as printed in Have Faith in Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages (2nd Ed.), Houghton Mifflin, pp. 200-201 : see link above.
1910s, Plymouth, Labor Day (1919)

“Khouri did not need to be told that Hades was a neutron star, any more than she needed to be told that there was no such thing as a safe close encounter with one. You either kept away or you died; those were the rules, and there was no force in the universe capable of negating them. Gravity ruled, and gravity did not take into account circumstances, or the unfairness of things, or listen to eleventh-hour petitions before reluctantly repealing its laws. Gravity crushed, and near the surface of a neutron star gravity crushed absolutely, until diamond flowed like water; until a mountain collapsed into a millionth of its height.”

Alastair Reynolds book Revelation Space

Source: Revelation Space (2000), Chapter 37 (p. 554).

Law, Mountain, Star, Universe

“It pains me deeply, or more deeply than any of you can imagine, to be perceived by so many members of my race as doing them harm. All the sacrifice, all the long hours of preparation were to help, not to hurt. But what hurts more, much more, is the amount of time and attention spent on manufactured controversies and media sideshows when so many problems cry out for constructive attention.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Pain, Imagination, Problem, Time

“Such rebellion is too deep and too constant to express itself in picketing, marching, sitting-in or freaking out; it is the serious, unresting protest of serious people. It is 24-hours-a-day rebellion, not intermittent, showy, status-seeking public uproar. It is rebellion as a way of life.”

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

"Prof. Robertson Davies: Courteous Conservative".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

Life, People, Way

“If the miser reaches the point of sacrificing his health, his pleasures, and even his very honesty for the love of his money, shall we not succeed in learning to love so noble an aim as intellectual work sufficiently to make us sacrifice our laziness for a few hours every day? … Should not our young people therefore spend at least five hours a day at their work-table in order to assure for themselves, both now and in the future, the manifold joys of intellectual culture?”

Jules Payot (1859–1940) French educationist

Source: The Education of the Will (1920), p. 110

Love, Money, People, Health

“Man's position in the world is defined by the fact that in every dimension of his being and behavior he finds himself at every moment between two boundaries. This condition appears as the formal structure of our existence, filled always with different contents in life's diverse provinces, activities, and destinies. We feel that the content and value of every hour stands between a higher and a lower; every thought between a wiser and a more foolish; every possession between a more extended and a more limited; every deed between a greater and a lesser measure of meaning, adequacy, and morality.”

Georg Simmel (1858–1918) German sociologist, philosopher, and critic

Source: The View of Life (1918), p. 1. Opening line of first essay "Life as Transcendence"

Life, World, Behavior, Feeling

“Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

The River Duddon, sonnet 34 - Afterthought, l. 10 (1820).

Future

“At the base of the plane, Styles freelance photographer is down on one knee, going handheld, still in the same Hawaiian shirt. The famously reclusive R. Vaughn Corliss is nowhere in view. Doug Llewellyn’s wardrobe furnished by Hugo Boss. The Malina blanket for the artist’s lap and thighs, however, is the last minute fix of a production oversight, retrieved from the car of an apprentice gaffer whose child is still nursing, and is not what anyone would call an appropriate color or design, and appears unbilled. There’s also some eleventh hour complication involving the ground level camera and the problem of keeping the commode’s special monitor out of its upward shot, since video capture of a camera’s own monitor causes what is known in the industry as feedback glare — the artist in such a case would see, not his own emergent Victory, but a searing and amorphous light.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

"The Suffering Channel", Oblivion: Stories
Short stories

Cars, Color, Problem, Light

“Loveliest of lovely things are they,
On earth, that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson http://www.4literature.net/William_Cullen_Bryant/Scene_on_the_Banks_of_the_Hudson/, st. 3 (1828)

Love, Flowers

“We must admit that it is extremely difficult to formulate a theory sufficiently general to encompass all possible sufficient causes of wars. With regard to necessary causes, however,… it is weapons. Without weapons wars could not be fought. We are told that, deprived of weapons, people would still fight with sticks and stones. This, however, need not concern us. We are concerned not just with fighting but with the sort of mass insanity that can destroy the entire civilization, the product of millenia of accumulated effort, in a matter of hours. And this can be done only with real, up-to-date weapons, not sticks and stones.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

1960s, "The Study of Conflict," 1968

War, People, Effort, Fight

“I quit work two weeks later--having sold another eighty of my hours--and knew I could never again work a regular job.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

Source: A Language Older Than Words (2000), p. 110-111

“I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

Edward Everett (1794–1865) American politician, orator, statesman

Letter to Abraham Lincoln on his Gettysburg Address (20 November 1863).

Idea

“She snorted with a sudden violence which twenty-four hours earlier would have unmanned me completely. Even in my present tolerably robust condition, it affected me like one of those gas explosions which slay six.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“Till 2007 I have responded to everyone to all questions asked. You can read it in print media, electronic media. Yes, in 2007 when UPA again tried to take all legal routes to drag me to court then I stopped talking as I didn't want it to influence the issue because of Supreme Court ruling. Has any [other] CM been grilled for 9 hours? SC has seen the tape as it ordered the questioning. I have been through all those hurdles and I am ready for it. Modi won't surrender to such false political intentions.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2014, "GhoshanaPatra with Narendra Modi", 2014

Question, Reading, Falseness

“The Bitchun Society had all but done away with any sort of dull, repetitious labor, and what remained—tending bar, mopping toilets—commanded Whuffie aplenty and a life of leisure in your off-hours.”

Cory Doctorow book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

Life

“Every Sunday I’d take a 20-minute bus ride to his house in Beverley Hills for a one-hour lesson and be there for four hours […] They had four sons, they didn’t have a daughter and I kind of fitted in as the baby of the family.”

Nancy Cartwright (1957) American actress

Quoted in And speaking of the Simpsons, 2004-08-12, Edinburgh Evening News, 2009-02-07 http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/thesimpsons/And-speaking-of-the-Simpsons.2554090.jp, Referring to her voice training lessons with Butler

Family, Baby, Housing, Daughters

““Mani Madhava Chakyar was performing sikhinisalabha… Butterflies fly all around. Some of them fell into the fire below. The anguish was reflected in the actor’s eyes. Ha! There they come out without a burn! What a relief! They came again. The actor continued the performance. Only his eyes move… The audience was spellbound. They did not know that an hour has passed!”
- About his world famous abhinaya of the shloka shikhinisalabha from Subhadradhananjayam.”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Abhinaya and Netrābhinaya Source: Indigenous Sanskrit theatre form, The Hindu, Tuesday, Jul 31, 2007 http://www.hindu.com/br/2007/07/31/stories/2007073150031600.htm

World, Flying

“I love dressing up. I’m from a huge African family and grew up in a really colorful place. The way I dress reflects my environment and wanting to take people into a fantasy world for half an hour.”

Shingai Shoniwa (1981) British musician

http://venuszine.com/stories/music/4102.php

Love, People, World, Family

“Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall
Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall
It's not a matter of when push comes to shove
It's just an hour on the wings of a dove.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Warm Love
Song lyrics, Hard Nose the Highway (1973)

Flowers, Grass

“There are earth-shattering events going on around you, Lydia. men are scheming, debating, plotting, intriguing for the future of our country but, despite all their talk, it is the little children who are really creating the future. While these big men spend hours talking and arguing, you and your friends are busy building a nation. I don't exaggerate: all societies must be based on justice, love, trust and sharing. Though only 3, you are already practising them in your playgroup. Left to yourselves, you black and white children are actually doing that, while the politicians nervously insert clauses into bills to guard their investments and vested interest, or to protect people from people. You don't need to be protected from children of other races, because to you they are simply your friends, and you accept them totally for what they are. Your playgroup is based on trust. That is a precious commodity. I hope you never lose it. When men in Namibia act on that lesson we too, like you, can begin to build a nation.”

Colin Winter (1928–1981) Bishop of Damaraland noted for opposing apartheid; exiled Bishop of Namibia; Irish-British Anglican bishop

"An Open Letter to Lydia Morrow" Pro Veritate, V.15, No. 4 (September 1976) http://disa.nu.ac.za/articledisplaypage.asp?filename=PVSep76&articletitle=An+open+letter+to+Lydia+Morrow+from+Colin+Winter%2C+Bishop+of+Damaraland+in+exile+++++++++&searchtype=browse. Pro Veritate http://disa.nu.ac.za/journals/jourpvexpand.htm was a Christian monthly journal published in South Africa from 1962 to 1977. Lydia Morrow was the small daughter of Winter's friends and associates, Edward and Laureen Morrow.

Love, Men, Children, People

“Dawn comes early when you wish it would not. The hours flash when you want them to drag.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 56, “Time Fading” (p. 686)

“Living with a woman is going to be really tough. They tend to be really domesticated, you know. They fold things and clean things and know what they are going to have for dinner several hours before it's time to eat.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Time

“From that hour Siddhartha ceased to fight against his destiny. There shone in his face the serenity of knowledge, of one who is no longer confronted with conflict of desires, who has found salvation, who is in harmony with the stream of events, with the stream of life, full of sympathy and compassion, surrendering himself to the stream, belonging to the unity of all things.”

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer

Source: Siddhartha (1922), p. 94

Life, Knowledge, Fight

“The love of a dog for his master is notorious; in the agony of death he has been known to caress his master, and every one has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter II: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals", page 40 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=53&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871)

Love, Life, Death, Dogs

“It is an awesome sight, repeatedly drawn and painted. How long did it last, this Fall of Angels? Was it all over in an hour? Or did it take days, weeks, years? Is it still going on?”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Flying Out of This World

Angels, Painting

““Sounds impressive. And expensive.”
“Not at all.” Danziger shook his head firmly. “It will cost, all told, only a little over three million dollars, less than the cost of two hours of war, and a better buy.””

Jack Finney book Time and Again

Source: Time and Again (1970), Chapter 4 (p. 65)

War

“The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained.”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Bk. I, ch. 1
The Return of the Native (1878)

People, Change, Sun, Sea

“The days, the nights, flow one by one above us,
The hours go silently over our lifted faces,
We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea.
Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together.
We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Sleep, Sun, Sea, Night

“Will-power, give me back some to survive,
One more hour and I'm coming alive…
I can see the light!
And there's blue sky breaking
Through the edge of the night…
I can see the light!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Earth Moving (1989)

Light, Night

“Ah! what is human life?
How, like the dial's tardy-moving shade,
Day after day slides from us unperceiv'd!
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth;
Too subtle is the movement to be seen;
Yet soon the hour is up—and we are gone.”

Edward Young (1683–1765) English poet

Busiris (1719), Act V, sc. i.

Life

“I think the evening news broadcasts are very different today than they were 25-years-ago. I think that the advent of 24-hour cable television. You don't have to wait for 6:30 or 7:00 to get the national news. You can turn on cable any time and you're going to get it right away. And I think that that 24-hour continuous news cycle has affected the way that news is covered. And I'm not sure that that's always a good thing. It can be, but it's not always a good thing.”

Ed Bradley (1941–2006) News correspondent

[Larry King, Interview with Ed Bradley, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0402/08/lkl.00.html, February 8, 2004, Larry King Live, CNN]

Way, Thinking, Time, Waiting

“Part of it, which perhaps you and most other observers are not aware, is that I have enough passive income, and enough dispassion for conventional status signaling, that my marginal utility of money is pretty low compared to my disutility for doing busywork. To put it in perspective, I quit my last regular job in 2002, and stopped doing consulting for that company as well (at $100/hour) a year later when they merged with Microsoft and told me I had to do a bunch of paperwork and be hired by Microsoft's "independent consulting company" in order to continue.”

Wei Dai Cryptocurrency pioneer and computer scientist

In a discussion thread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Jter3YhFBZFYo8vtq/look-for-the-next-tech-gold-rush#ikKBYevf2aL2pBwsS on LessWrong, July 2014

Money, Parting

“Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources.
Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Visions and Ideals

Life, Youth, Beauty, Dreams

“Emotions are useless during business hours.”

Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) American writer

"Zigzags of Treachery" (published in Black Mask, 1 March 1924)
Short Stories

Business

“Huh, guess ah shouldn't huh did it. (imitating Britney's 55-hour husband Jason Allen Alexander) Come on, Mr. Britney. Grammar, grammar.”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

The D-list (2004)

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Aurobindo, from a letter of Sri Aurobindo that C.R. Das was reading out while defending him in the Alipore Bomb Trial. C.R. Das Speech in defence of Aurobindo Ghosh in the Maincktala Bomb Case. The judgement was issued in 1909. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.

Life, Law, Dreams, Idea

“This led me to extend my inquiry into the origin of all religions, and this again led to an enquiry into the origin of nations and languages; and ultimately I came to a resolution to devote six hours a day to this pursuit for ten years. Instead of six hours daily for ten years, I believe I have, upon the average, applied myself to it for nearly ten hours daily for almost twenty years. In the first ten years of my search I may fairly say, I found nothing which I sought for; in the latter part of the twenty, the quantity of matter has so crowded in upon me, that I scarcely know how to dispose of it.”

Godfrey Higgins (1772–1833) British archaeologist

Undated letter at Godfrey Higgins http://burghwallis.com/village/articles/higgins.htm biography.

Religion, Search, Parting

“You’re negotiating all these problems for several years, they will talk about that, about a newspaper, they will talk about an underage boy in prison (for example). He’s 17 and he raped a nine-year-old, and they ask: “Why do you lock him up?” And so I say, what do you do, this is a rape case, and they want to discuss, I spend so many hours discussing whatever it is this boy… So what do they want us to do? Release him? So that he can go and rape another one?”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

On doing business with China easily. Interviews, Interview with Financial Times, 2007-10-04 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8a07e28-72a3-11dc-b7ff-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check1/

Boy, Problem

“Lots of artists who paint have that experience to one degree or another, this release where their thinking doesn't precede their doing. The space is shortened between thinking and doing. It's a funny thing, what I really hate, yet I have to go through with it, is the preparation. You have to go through it, like somebody preparing for sacred vows, the sensation of you putting paint on, and it's so boring to put paint on and to see yourself putting paint on. You're really preparing for those few hours where some kind of umbilical cord is attached between you and it. You do it and the work is done and this cord seems to slacken, as if you left yourself there. And what a relief to leave yourself somewhere, to get out of it entirely.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Source: 1961 - 1980, transcript of a public forum at Boston university', conducted by Joseph Ablow 1966, p. 68

Hate, Thinking, Painting

“On oilrigs men who only work an 8-hour day are contemptuously called nine-to-fivers. In stark contrast, women are more likely not to take risks, even when the risks are minimal. What's the message to our sons? Our praise of our sons when they risk physical danger teaches them that a willingness to be physically abused creates love. Abuse-as-love? Yes.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 39.

Love, Women, Men

“What Dad means by "see" of course, is "drive past at 67 miles per hour." Dad feels it is a foolish waste of valuable vacation time to get out of the car and actually go look at an attraction.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (1991)

Cars, Feeling, Time, Past

“I know I shall be called heterodox, and that unseen lightning flashes and unheard thunderbolts will be playing around my head, when I say that women will never be profound students in any other department except music while they give four hours a day to the practice of music. I should by all means encourage every woman who is born with musical gifts to study music; but study it as a science and an art, and not as an accomplishment; and to every woman who is not musical, I should say, 'Don't study it at all;' you cannot afford four hours a day, out of some years of your life, just to be agreeable in company upon possible occasions. If for four hours a day you studied, year after year, the science of language, for instance, do you suppose you would not be a linguist? Do you put the mere pleasing of some social party, and the reception of a few compliments, against the mental development of four hours a day of study of something for which you were born? When I see that girls who are required by their parents to go through with the irksome practising really become respectable performers, I wonder what four hours a day at something which they loved, and for which God designed them, would do for them. I should think that to a real scientist in music there would be something mortifying in this rush of all women into music; as there would be to me if I saw every girl learning the constellations, and then thinking she was an astronomer!”

Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) American astronomer

Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters and Journals (illustrated) by Maria Mitchell, 1896, p. 189.

Love, Life, Women, God

“The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even moderate resistance.”

Paul Schmidt (1899–1970) German translator, Nazi

Quoted in "What Hitler Knew: The Battle for Information in Nazi Foreign Policy" - by Zachary Shore - 2003

Life

“When you're big you don't need a reason to sweat. You don't, right? My friends cannot grab a hold of this concept. They come up to me all the time like "Jeez! What have you been doing? What are ya jumpin rope in the attic?!" "Well, I peeled an orange.. about an hour ago. Why, what's up?"”

Kevin James (1965) American actor and comedian

Sweat the Small Stuff (2001)

Time

“Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on December 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pearl-harbor-2001 of Pearl Harbor (25 May 2001) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Love, Quotes

“I'm going through a strange period now. Maybe the most serious of all my short life. I can see that my goals are becoming more and more remote from those of the family, and that you and they will be less and less inclined to approve of them... And still I must go on. I must not retreat. I struggle forward, just as all of you do, but I'm doing it within my own mind, my own skin, and in the way I think is right. I'm little frightened by my loneliness in my unguarded hours. But personally those are the very hours that help me along toward my goal. You needn't show this letter to our parents.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

In a letter to her sister Milly, 21 September 1899; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 199
1899

Life, Family, Way, Thinking

“I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system. And I'm not just saying that. I'm really not a very nice person. I can say "I don't care" with a straight face, and really mean it.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Message to linux-kernel mailing list, 2000-09-06, Torvalds, Linus, 2007-05-28 http://lkml.org/lkml/2000/9/6/65, 2000s, 2000-04

People, Guy, Feeling, Thinking

“The easier your job, the more you got paid. John had suspected this for many years, but here was the proof: pulling down five hundred bucks an hour to sit in the afternoon sun on top of an L. A. office tower.”

Max Barry book Jennifer Government

Source: Jennifer Government (2003), Chapter 40, page 138

Sun

“I caught a glimpse of sun rays filtering through a window, thus lighting up a portion of this magnificent building. I was racing against the sun, desperately trying to finish my sketch before the light disappeared. I knew I had only an hour and a half before sunset.”

Wahbi Al-Hariri (1914–1994) Artist, architect, author

Source: Lisa Kaaki (2002-01-25). Wahbi Al-Hariri - the last of the classicists http://www.webcitation.org/6HcrXOzJ5. Arab News. Saudi Research & Publishing Company.

Light, Sun

“When my son is taping for his permanent collection, he sits there and pauses his machine and when he is finished with it, he has a marvelous Clint Eastwood movie and there is no sign of a commercial. It is a brand new movie and he can put three of those on one 6-hour tape.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

Testimony to the US House of Representatives (1982)

“I don’t know about that because nobody said anything to me on my face. And if I was being favoured, I would have just come for a couple of hours for the shoot and gone. Instead, I used to be on the sets for more than six hours, rehearsing, performing and then rushing off for my Madhubala shoot!”

Drashti Dhami (1985) Indian television actress and model

At some point your co-contestants felt that you were being favoured http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/interview-i-was-in-another-zone-reveals-jhalak-dikhla-jaa-6-winner-drashti-dhami-1890057

“Weak watery sun, but sun nonetheless. Why does it take me nearly 2 hours just to get through the morning emails? Pah, poo and pants.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

2000s

Sun

“They should just call it The Bad News. The bloodiest, most disgusting things that happened today packed into a half an hour, right before you go to bed. You thought you were scared before…”

Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

Platypus Man

“Now have I told you of Fifteen Revelations, as God vouchsafed to minister them to mind, renewed by lightings and touchings, I hope of the same Spirit that shewed them all.
Of which Fifteen Shewings the First began early in the morn, about the hour of four; and they lasted, shewing by process full fair and steadily, each following other, till it was nine of the day, overpassed.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Fifteenth Revelation, Chapter 65

God, Hope, Light

“Well, sir. Perhaps a few hours will show who are the brave.”

Johann de Kalb (1721–1780) American general

In August 1780, as quoted in "Death of Baron De Kalb" https://books.google.com/books?id=k2QAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=%22I+thank+you+sir+for+your+generous+sympathy,+but+I+die+the+death+I+always+prayed+for:+the+death+of+a+soldier+fighting+for+the+rights+of+man%22&source=bl&ots=-93hJzoCYU&sig=tAag8ObQI-ZjiII56viczov02wM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VlYVVcuJI4KmNsazgYgL&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22I%20thank%20you%20sir%20for%20your%20generous%20sympathy%2C%20but%20I%20die%20the%20death%20I%20always%20prayed%20for%3A%20the%20death%20of%20a%20soldier%20fighting%20for%20the%20rights%20of%20man%22&f=false (1849), by Benjamin Franklin Ells, The Western Miscellany, Volume 1, p. 234. 1780s

“It was a great experience. Unfortunately those days are over. Nowadays, you seldom see an artist listening to another artiste. Also, the sangeet jalsas, would go on for hours. I remember the tickets were priced at 50 paise for sitting on the ground and a rupee for a chair! All this may sound quaint today.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

On her grand old days of the All India Music Conference, which were the best in the music world quoted in "On Gangubai Hangal by Sabina Sehgal Computer Science & Engineering - University of Washington".

“Being fresh out of college, I found myself in the typically feminine dilemma of carving out for myself in a male world a way of life appropriate to a young woman of taste, cultivation and sensitivity. There must be nothing crass—like work. However, a girl must survive. So, after a cool appraisal of the social scene, I finally hit upon an excellent-paying occupation, challenging to the ingenuity, dealing on one's own terms with people and affording independence, flexible hours, great stability and, most important, a large amount of leisure time, an occupation highly appropriate to female sensibilities. I contemplate my good fortune as I begin work for the day: "Pardon me, Sir, do you have fifteen cents?"”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

"A Young Girl's Primer" (1966)

Life, People, World, Way

“All the Apollo people were working hard, working long hours, and were dedicated to making certain everything they did, they were doing to the very best of their ability.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Source: 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing (2009)

People

“Normally man’s mind is composed only of a consciousness of his immediate needs, which is to say that this consciousness at any moment can be defined as ‘’his awareness of his own power to satisfy those needs.’’ He thinks in terms of what he intends to do in half an hour’s time, a day’s time, a month’s time an no more. He never asks himself: what are the ‘’limits’’ of my powers? In a sense, he is like a man who has a fortune is the bank, who never asks himself, How much money have I got, but only, Have I enough for a pound of cheese, a new tie, etc.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Six, The Question of Identity

Money, Thinking, Sense, Time

“So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Feb. 15, 1766, p. 145
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

Men, People, Nature

“But sometimes things happen that no one hopes for. Events that cause everything you've worked towards, the life you've carefully constructed piece by piece, to come tumbling down all around you. No one is to blame, but you're left with a wound you can't heal on your own and can't believe you'll ever learn to accept, so you struggle to escape the pain. Only time can heal wounds as deep as that - a lot of time - and all you can really do is place yourself in its hands and try to consider the passing of each day a victory. You tough it out moment by moment, hour by hour, and after some weeks or months you begin to see signs of recovery. Slowly the wound heals into a scar.”

Ryū Murakami book Audition

Source: Audition (1997), Chapter Three

Life, Pain, Hope, Learning

“Curious it is that every hour of our day is repeated from myriad chimes; and yet how rarely do we attend to the clock striking! Alas! how emblematic is this of the way in which we neglect the many signs of time! How terrible, when we think of what time may achieve, is the manner in which we waste it! At the end of every man's life, at least three-quarters of the mighty element of which that life was composed will be found void—lost—nay, utterly forgotten! And yet that time, laboured and husbanded, might have built palaces, gathered wealth, and, still greater, made an imperishable name.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Life, Way, Thinking, Time

“Adieu! 'tis love's last greeting,
The parting hour is come!
And fast thy soul is fleeting
To seek its starry home.”

Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857) French poet and chansonnier

L'Adieu; free translation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 579.

Love, Home, Soul, Parting

“I was imprisoned in Concepción for a few days and then realeased. They didn't torture me, as I had feared; they didn't even rob me. But they didn't give me anything to eat either, or any kind of covering for the night, so I had to rely on the goodwill of other prisoners, who shared their food with me. In the small hours I could hear them torturing others; I couldn't sleep and there was nothing to read except a magazine in English that someone had left behind. The only interesting article in it was about a house that had once belonged to Dylan Thomas. … I got out of that hole thanks to a pair of detectives who had been at high school with me in Los Ángeles…”

Roberto Bolaño book Last Evenings on Earth

His experience of being imprisoned during the regime of Augusto Pinochet, as depicted in "Dance Card", p. 215
Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

Fear, School, Food, Sleep

“Resident mockery
give us an hour for magic”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

An American Prayer (1978)

“…when the experiment was attempted by Michelson and Morley it failed, thus showing that space and time assumed in the picture were not true to the facts of nature. …the pattern of events was the same whether the world stood at rest in the supposed ether, or had an ether wind blowing through it at a million miles an hour. It began to look as though the supposed ether was not very important in the scheme of things… and so might as well be abandoned. But if the bell-rope is to be discarded, what is to ring the bell?”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

World, Nature, Time

“When we look at the pay of men and women who do work equal hours, two discoveries are quite astonishing:
--When women and men work less than 40 hours a week, the women earn more than the men;
--When men and women work more than 40, the men earn more than the women.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 79.

Women, Men

“The problems of this country are not going to be solved by one actor or even 10 actors. The problems are far too big. On the screen we get poetic justice in three hours. Poetic justice doesn’t come in a lifetime.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Justice, Problem, Country

“We want to tell American parents that they and they alone have total power to control every hour of television programming that comes into their home.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

As quoted in "US TV industry plans June ad campaign on decency" Reuters news agency (24 April 2006) http://www.entertainment-news.org/breaking/50538/us-tv-industry-plans-june-ad-campaign-on-decency.html

Home, Parent

“You shouldn't be trapped in the failures of other people, you know? Some of you are so scared of going out, you go hang out with anybody. But you ought to go out there with God, He listens, and listens 24 hours a day. You keep your television on, you surround yourself with friends, but you're scared of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. Never lose your reverence for Him. God is nothing to be joking about, but perfect love casts out fear.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Plymouth, Michigan http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/plymouth-michigan-aug1597.html (August 15, 1997) In Concert

Love, Wisdom, God, People

“Your armed forces have toppled the reactionary, backward and corrupt regime. With one strike your heroic army has toppled idols and destroyed them in one of Providence's fateful moments. As of now Libya shall be free and sovereign, a republic under the name of the Libyan Arab Republic. No oppressed or deceived or wronged, no master and no slave; but free brothers in a society over which, God willing, shall flutter the banner of brotherhood and equality. And thus shall we build glory, revive heritage and avenge a wounded dignity. Sons of the Bedouins, sons of the desert, sons of the ancient cities, sons of the countryside, sons of the villages, the hour of work has struck and so let us forge ahead.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Radio broadcast from Benghazi (1 September 1969), quoted in The Libyan Revolution: Its Origins and Legacy (2009) by Nicholas Hagger
Speeches

God, Fate

“When then is liberalism correctly understood? Liberalism is not an exclusvely political term. It can be applied to a prison reform, to an economic order, to a theology. Within the political framework, the question is not (as in a democracy) “Who should rule?” but “How should rule be exercised?” The reply is “Regardless of who rules—a monarch, an elite, a majority, or a benevolent dictator—governments should be exercised in such a way that each citizen enjoys the greatest amount of personal liberty.” The limit of liberty is obviously the common good. But, admittedly, the common good (material as well as immaterial) is not easily defined, for it rests on value judgments. Its definition is therefore always somewhat arbitrary. Speed limits curtail freedom in the interests of the common good. Is there a watertight case for forty, forty-five, or fifty miles an hour? Certainly not…. Freedom is thus the only postulate of liberalism—of genuine liberalism. If, therefore, democracy is liberal, the life, the whims, the interests of the minority will be just as respected as those of the majority. Yet surely not only a democracy, but a monarchy (absolute or otherwise) or an aristocratic (elitist) regime can be liberal. In fact, the affinity between democracy and liberalism is not at all greater than that between, say, monarchy and liberalism or a mixed government and liberalism. (People under the Austrian monarchy, which was not only symbolic but an effective mixed government, were not less free than those in Canada, to name only one example.)”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Leftism Revisited (1990), p. 21

Life, People, Way, Exercises

“I Am Curious (Yellow) is not merely not erotic. It is anti-erotic. Two hours of this movie will drive thoughts of sex out of your mind for weeks. See the picture and buy twin beds… I think there actually is a director in Sweden who is dull and square enough to seriously consider this an art of moviemaking.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-am-curious-yellow-1969 of I Am Curious (Yellow) (23 September 1969) Reviews, One-star reviews

Art, Sex, Thinking

Quotes about hour page 8

Quotes about hour
page 8