Quotes about lifetime
page 3

Sylvia Plath photo

“So much working, reading, thinking, living to do! A lifetime is not long enough.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

John F. Kennedy photo

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

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

1961, Inaugural Address
Context: If a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Christopher Hitchens photo

“We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

“I have read somewhere that we often spend a lifetime searching for what we already have.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Slightly Married

Glen Cook photo
Glenn Beck photo

“This is going to be an image for the history books. If you come, I believe this may, and it may be in 100 years from now or 200 years from now, I believe this will be remembered as the moment America turned the corner. I don't know how it works out. I don't know if it even works out in my lifetime. But I believe this is the pivot point. Be there, with your children.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-06-08
Beck believes that in 100 to 200 years, his 8-28 rally "will be remembered as the moment America turned the corner"
2010-06-08
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201006080027
on his Restoring Honor rally on 2010-08-28
2010s, 2010

Van Morrison photo
Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama photo

“If I could meditate as deeply
on the sacred texts as I do
on you, I would clearly be
enlightened in this lifetime.”

Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (1683–1706) sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Source: Attributed, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso tr. Paul Williams 2004, p.22

Lee Kuan Yew photo

“Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards! This is your life and mine! I've spent a whole lifetime building this and as long as I'm in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Rally in 1980, related to the then-ongoing Singapore Airlines pilot strikes due to salary issue http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32012346
1980s

Donald Barthelme photo

“What makes The Joker tick I wonder?” Fredric said. “I mean what are his real motivations?”
“Consider him at any level of conduct,” Bruce said slowly, “in the home, on the street, in interpersonal relations, in jail—always there is an extraordinary contradiction. He is dirty and compulsively neat, aloof and desperately gregarious, enthusiastic and sullen, generous and stingy, a snappy dresser and a scarecrow, a gentleman and a boor, given to extremes of happiness and despair, singularly well able to apply himself and capable of frittering away a lifetime in trivial pursuits, decorous and unseemly, kind and cruel, tolerant yet open to the most outrageous varieties of bigotry, a great friend and an implacable enemy, a lover and abominator of women, sweet-spoken and foul-mouthed, a rake and a puritan, swelling with hubris and haunted by inferiority, outcast and social climber, felon and philanthropist, barbarian and patron of the arts, enamored of novelty and solidly conservative, philosopher and fool, Republican and Democrat, large of soul and unbearably petty, distant and brimming with friendly impulses, an inveterate liar and astonishingly strict with petty cash, adventurous and timid, imaginative and stolid, malignly destructive and a planter of trees on Arbor Day—I tell you frankly, the man is a mess.”
“That’s extremely well said Bruce,” Fredric stated. “I think you’ve given a very thoughtful analysis.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“I was paraphrasing what Mark Schorer said about Sinclair Lewis,” Bruce replied.
“The Joker’s Greatest Triumph”.
Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964)

Gore Vidal photo
Willa Cather photo
Stephen King photo
Will Eisner photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Elie Wiesel photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
John Hodgman photo
Masiela Lusha photo

“It is the show that keeps giving. Every night it offers something to society, and it offered something to every one of us. It brought us all together for a lifetime.”

Masiela Lusha (1985) Albanian actress, writer, author

Statement on Lopez Tonight during cast reunion http://www.lopeztonight.com/

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom photo

“British Empire. First trip to India. Glorious. Never would have believed it would all be gone in my lifetime. Not possible, I’d’ve thought. I am the last king-emperor, you know. My brother was, for a time, but had to give it up. I didn’t”

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (1894–1972) king of the United Kingdom and its dominions in 1936

To Gore Vidal, who described the Duke as having "always had something of...riveting stupidity to say on any subject" (Vidal, Palimpsest, 206)

James McNeill Whistler photo
Max Frisch photo

“Half a lifetime is spent with the unspoken question: Will it happen will it not?”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Sketchbook 1946-1949

Johnny Marr photo
Adam Gopnik photo
Mike Patton photo
Colin Wilson photo
Madison Grant photo
Charles Stross photo
Burkard Schliessmann photo
Eugène Delacroix photo
David Lee Roth photo
Ty Cobb photo

“Williams is one batter I thought would break my lifetime batting average of.367. If he'd learned to hit to left, Ted would have broken every record in the book.”

Ty Cobb (1886–1961) American baseball player

On Ted Williams, as quoted in "Here's the Pitch" by Frank Finch, in The Los Angeles Times (June 5, 1958), p. C2

Amitabh Bachchan photo
Shi Nai'an photo

“A man should not marry after thirty years of age; should not enter the government service after the age of forty; should not have any more children after the age of fifty; and should not travel after the age of sixty. This is because the proper time for those things has passed. At sunrise the country is bright and fresh, and you dress, wash, and eat your breakfast, but before long it is noon. Then you realize how quickly time passes. I am always surprised when people talk about other people's ages, because what is a lifetime but a small part of much greater period? Why talk about insects when the whole world is before you? How can you count time by years? All that is clear is that time passes, and all the time there is a continual change going on. Some change has taken place ever since I began to write this. This continual change and decay fills me with sadness.”

Shi Nai'an (1296–1372) Chinese writer

Variant translation by Lin Yutang: "A man should not marry after thirty if he is not already married, and should not enter the government service if he is not already in the service. At fifty, he should not start to raise a family, and at sixty should not travel abroad. This is because there is a time for everything; done out of season and time, there may be more disadvantages than advantages. One wakes up at dawn completely refreshed, washes his face and puts on the headdress, has his breakfast; chews willow branches [for brightening his teeth], and attends to various things. Before he knows it he asks is it noon, and is told it is long past noon. As the morning goes, so goes the afternoon, and as one day passes, so pass the 36,000 days of one's life. If one is going to be upset by this thought, how can one ever enjoy life? I often wonder at a statement that such and such a person is so many years old. By this one means an accumulation of years. But where have the years accumulated? Can one lay hold of them and count them? This shows that the me of the past has long vanished. Moreover, when I have completed this sentence, the preceding sentence has already vanished. That is the tragedy." (The Importance of Understanding, 1960; pp. 83–84)
Preface to Water Margin

Yanni photo

“Of all the forces that are exerted on us over our lifetime, at least for me, love has been the most powerful of all.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

St. Vincent (musician) photo
Jacob Bronowski photo

“The Principle of Uncertainty is a bad name. In science, or outside of it, we are not uncertain; our knowledge is merely confined, within a certain tolerance. We should call it the Principle of Tolerance. And I propose that name in two senses. First, in the engineering sense: Science has progressed, step by step, the most successful enterprise in the ascent of man, because it has understood that the exchange of information between man and nature, and man and man, can only take place with a certain tolerance. But second, I also use the word, passionately, about the real world. All knowledge – all information between human beings – can only be exchanged within a play of tolerance. And that is true whether the exchange is in science, or in literature, or in religion, or in politics, or in any form of thought that aspires to dogma. It's a major tragedy of my lifetime and yours that scientists were refining, to the most exquisite precision, the Principle of Tolerance – and turning their backs on the fact that all around them, tolerance was crashing to the ground beyond repair. The Principle of Uncertainty or, in my phrase, the Principle of Tolerance, fixed once for all the realization that all knowledge is limited. It is an irony of history that at the very time when this was being worked out, there should rise, under Hitler in Germany and other tyrants elsewhere, a counter-conception: a principle of monstrous certainty. When the future looks back on the 1930's, it will think of them as a crucial confrontation of culture as I have been expounding it – the ascent of man against the throwback to the despots' belief that they have absolute certainty.”

Episode 11: "Knowledge or Certainty"
The Ascent of Man (1973)

“The Second Coming will probably happen within the lifetime of people living today.”

Mike Bickle (1955) American writer and priest

Where Worship Never Pauses
2011-07-09
Erik
Eckholm
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/us/10prayer.html?_r=1
2011-08-06

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo
Ben Harper photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: "If you are well, it is well; I also am well." Persons like ourselves would do well to say. "If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly.”
Mos antiquis fuit, usque ad meam servatus aetatem, primis epistulae verbis adicere 'si vales bene est, ego valeo'. Recte nos dicimus 'si philosopharis, bene est'. Valere enim hoc demum est. Sine hoc aeger est animus.

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

Mos antiquis fuit, usque ad meam servatus aetatem, primis epistulae verbis adicere 'si vales bene est, ego valeo'. Recte nos dicimus 'si philosopharis, bene est'.
Valere enim hoc demum est. Sine hoc aeger est animus.
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XV

“After half a lifetime of poking fun at Bernard Shaw's materialism Kingsmill was not above touching the despised sage for ten quid. Even in the Australian school of literary morals, we weren't allowed to slag a man and put the bit on him simultaneously: it had to be one or the other.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Richard Ingrams at Doubting Castle'
Essays and reviews, From the Land of Shadows (1982)

Aidan Nichols photo
William Morley Punshon photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Lewis Mumford photo
Camille Paglia photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo
Ben Carson photo

“God has opened many doors of opportunity throughout my lifetime, but I believe the greatest of those doors was allowing me to be born in the United States of America.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: America the Beautiful (2012), Ch. 13: 'What's Good about America'

James Mattis photo

“For decades, Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped and murdered the Iraqi people; invaded neighboring countries without provocation; and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rest the hopes of mankind. When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them. Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam’s oppression. Chemical attack, treachery, and use of the innocent as human shields can be expected, as can other unethical tactics. Take it all in stride. Be the hunter, not the hunted: never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down. Use good judgment and act in best interests of our Nation. You are part of the world’s most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit. For the mission’s sake, our country’s sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division’s colors in the past battles-who fought for life and never lost their nerve-carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Demonstrate to the world there is "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" than a U.S. Marine.
Mattis' words in a message to the 1st Marine Division in March 2003, on the eve of the Iraq War, as quoted in "Eve of Battle Speech" in The Weekly Standard (1 March 2003); also quoted in War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) by Oliver North, p. 53

Marcel Marceau photo

“I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.”

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

The Guardian (London, 11 August 1988)

Thomas Frank photo
Miley Cyrus photo
Bill Clinton photo

“Hillary will make us stronger together. You know it because she’s spent a lifetime doing it.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

2010s, (July 26, 2016)

Edwin Thompson Jaynes photo
Gancho Tsenov photo
Joel Fuhrman photo
Enoch Powell photo

“Now, at present Britain has no V. A. T., and the questions whether this new tax should be introduced, how it should be levied, and what should be its scope, would be matters of debate in the country and in Parliament. The essence of parliamentary democracy lies in the power to debate and impose taxation: it is the vital principle of the British House of Commons, from which all other aspects of its sovereignty ultimately derive. With Britain in the community, one important element of taxation would be taken automatically, necessarily and permanently out of the hands of the House of Commons…Those matters which sovereign parliaments debate and decide must be debated and decided not by the British House of Commons but in some other place, and by some other body, and debated and decided once for the whole Community…it is a fact that the British Parliament and its paramount authority occupies a position in relation to the British nation which no other elective assembly in Europe possesses. Take parliament out of the history of England and that history itself becomes meaningless. Whole lifetimes of study cannot exhaust the reasons why this fact has come to be, but fact it is, so that the British nation could not imagine itself except with and through its parliament. Consequently the sovereignty of our parliament is something other for us than what your assemblies are for you. What is equally significant, your assemblies, unlike the British Parliament, are the creation of deliberate political acts, and most of recent political acts. The notion that a new sovereign body can be created is therefore as familiar to you as it is repugnant, not to say unimaginable, to us. This deliberate, and recent, creation of sovereign assemblies on the continent is in turn an aspect of the fact that the continent is familiar, and familiar in the recent past, with the creation of nation states themselves. Four of the six members of the Community came into existence as such no more than a century or a century and a half ago – within the memory of two lifetimes.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Lyons (12 February 1971), from The Common Market: The Case Against (Elliot Right Way Books, 1971), pp. 65-68.
1970s

Newt Gingrich photo

“The goal that the Obama team has is to fundamentally replace the historic America of self-reliance, independence, the work ethic, the people who go out and achieve because they spend their lifetime doing the right things. And they want to replace it with a politician-dominated redistributionist bureaucracy. Which in the essence would mean the end of America as it has been for the last 400 years.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-05-17
2010-05-17
On Beck's radio show, Gingrich says Obama admin. is trying to "end … America as it has been for the last 400 years"
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005170030
2011-03-30
2010s

Joseph M. Juran photo

“Thus the whole duration of humanity, with its many sequent species and its incessant downpour of generations, is but a flash in the lifetime of the cosmos.”

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter XIV: Neptune; Section 1, “Bird’s-Eye View” (p. 206)

Ed Bradley photo

“Known best for his investigative reports on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, Ed Bradley won 19 Emmy Awards throughout his journalism career, including one for lifetime achievement in 2003.”

Ed Bradley (1941–2006) News correspondent

[Congressman Steve LaTourette, Congressional Record, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2006-12-06/html/CREC-2006-12-06-pt2-PgH8798-3.htm, Honoring the Contributions and Life of Edward R. Bradley, H8798-H8800; Volume 152, Number 133, December 6, 2006, United States House of Representatives , printed by the United States Government Printing Office]
About

Keir Hardie photo
RuPaul photo

“We had a very hostile period [towards drag] after 9/11, especially in America, that was very fear based. And right now, we are enjoying an open window, politically and culturally. But don’t be fooled – all of this is cyclical. I’ve seen the window open in my lifetime and I’ve seen it close.”

RuPaul (1960) Actriz de Televisa, dueña y señora de los ejidos cacaoahuateros

Quoted by Owen Myers in The subversive genius of RuPaul http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/24914/1/the-subversive-genius-of-rupaul (2015)

Francis Escudero photo
Eric Hobsbawm photo
Mary Meeker photo
Jerry Falwell photo
Algis Budrys photo

“It isn’t given to very many men to have their dreams come true in their lifetimes.”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The Burning World, p. 58
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

“Life is each human being's workshop. If a man survives a lifetime with his creative capacities intact, he has done his part to make a better world for all men.”

Paul Rosenfels (1909–1985) American sociologist

12. Prescription for Survival
Love and Power: The Psychology of Interpersonal Creativity (1966)

Lauren Faust photo
Warren Farrell photo
Frank W. Abagnale photo

“I made a lot of exits through side doors, down fire escapes or over rooftops. I abandoned more wardrobes in the course of five years than most men acquire in a lifetime. I was slipperier than a buttered escargot.”

Frank W. Abagnale (1948) American security consultant, former confidence trickster, check forger, impostor, and escape artist

Source: Catch Me if You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake, 2002, Ch.1 Pg.4(a), Ch.1 Pg. 11(b),Back cover(c), Ch.6 Pg.116(d)

Michael Swanwick photo
Thomas Merton photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Ken Ham photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Michele Bachmann photo

“We are unwilling to let this cabal of radicals pull the rug of freedom out from under us in our lifetime. Now we have this glorious opportunity called November.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

Frederick County Republican Central Committee's Lincoln-Reagan Dinner, 2010-04-25

2010s

Jim Rogers photo
William Fitzsimmons photo

“A lifetime here with you will seem to short.”

William Fitzsimmons (1978) American musician

Until When We Are Ghosts (2006), Forsake All Others

Larry Hogan photo
Warren Farrell photo
Maxfield Parrish photo

“There is an implied warranty that a commissioned work should last a lifetime. There is to be no charge.”

Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966) American painter and illustrator

Turning down an offer of payment from Irénée du Pont in 1954 for a second mural after one he had finished in 1933 began to deteriorate because of improperly dried paint; as quoted in "How Maxfield Parrish Fulfilled a Warranty" by Seth W. Mattingly in Valley News [Lebanon, NH] (10 February 1982), p.2.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Murray Leinster photo
Franz Kafka photo
Muhammad photo

“A person seeing (visiting) my grave deserves my intercession. And a person who visits me after my death is like a person who visited me during my lifetime.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar, Volume 96, Page 334
Shi'ite Hadith

“Why should I worry about dying? It's not going to happen in my lifetime!”

Raymond Smullyan (1919–2017) American mathematician

This Book Needs No Title (1986)