Quotes about moment
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John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn photo

“Some think that we are approaching a critical moment in the history of Liberalism. ... We hear of a divergence of old Liberalism and new. ... The terrible new school, we hear, are for beginning operations by dethroning Gladstonian finance. They are for laying hands on the sacred ark. But did any one suppose that the fiscal structure which was reared in 1853 was to last for ever, incapable of improvement, and guaranteed to need no repair? ... Another heresy is imputed to this new school which fixes a deep gulf between the wicked new Liberals and the virtuous old. We are adjured to try freedom first before we try interference of the State. That is a captivating formula, but it puzzles me to find that the eminent statesman who urges us to lay this lesson to heart is strongly in favour of maintaining the control of the State over the Church? But is State interference an innovation? I thought that for 30 years past Liberals had been as much in favour as other people of this protective legislation. ... [O]ther countries have tried freedom and it is just because we have decided that freedom in such a case is only a fine name for neglect, and have tried State supervision, that we have saved our industrial population from the waste, destruction, destitution, and degradation that would otherwise have overtaken them. ... In short, gentlemen, I am not prepared to allow that the Liberty and the Property Defence League are the only people with a real grasp of Liberal principles, that Lord Bramwell and the Earl of Wemyss are the only Abdiels of the Liberal Party.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Annual presidential address to the Junior Liberal Association of Glasgow (10 February 1885), quoted in 'Mr. John Morley At Glasgow', The Times (11 February 1885), p. 10
1880s

William Faulkner photo

“No man is himself, he is the sum of his past. There is no such thing really as was because the past is. It is a part of every man, every woman, and every moment.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

An answer to a student's question as to why he writes in long sentences during his Writer-in-Residence time at the University of Virginia in 1957-1958. Faulkner in the University, p. 84
Faulkner in the University (1959)

Alex Grey photo
Alex Grey photo
Alex Grey photo
Alex Grey photo
Alex Grey photo

“Godself sings one song
moment by moment
with infinite variations”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

uni : one
verse : poem or song
Art Psalms (2008), Universe

Patañjali photo

“Yoga takes you into the present moment, the only place where life exists.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Patanjali, in "Being Consciousness Bliss: A Seeker's Guide", p. 205.

Ram Dass photo

“I thought at that moment, Wow, I've got it made. I'm just a new beautiful being — I'm just an inner self — all I'll ever need to do is look inside and I'll know what to do and I can always trust it, and here I'll be forever.”

But two or three days later I was talking about the whole thing in the past tense. I was talking about how I "experienced" this thing, because I was back being that anxiety-neurotic, in a slightly milder form, but still, my old personality was sneaking back up on me.
Be Here Now (1971)

Jane Seymour photo

“Open your heart when times get tough, accept what happens, live in the moment and reach out to help others as there’s always someone worse off than you.”

Jane Seymour (1951) English-American actress

She believed, rightly, that gives you purpose and helps you heal. So I always do my best to forgive and move forward.

On the lessons that her Dutch mother (who was interned in a Japanese internment camp during WWII) instilled in her in “Interview: Jane Seymour on finding love again at 64” https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/interview-jane-seymour-on-finding-love-again-at-64-1-3911978 in The Scotsman (2015 Oct 10)

“When the noisy tide receded
from the shore
the frozen shiny sands suddenly moved
beneath her feer.
The girl standing knee-deep in water
came to herself and mused:
'How familiar is this moment!'”

Parveen Shakir (1952–1994) Pakistani writer and poet

Sessions of Sweet, Silent Thought: translated by Mirza Nehal Ahmad Baig, Poem no. 16, p. 26
Poetry, Familiarity

Jon Pineda photo

“Once I wrote poems, I found that I was able to piece together individual moments that would, I’d hoped, sometimes compound. The line was the most important thing to me—that and the music it produced.”

Jon Pineda (1971) American writer

On how poetry writing eventually led to short stories and other works in “A Poet’s Novel: Jon Pineda talks LET’S NO ONE GET HURT” https://www.booklistreader.com/2018/03/22/books-and-authors/a-poets-novel-jon-pineda-talks-lets-no-one-get-hurt/ in Booklist Reader (2018 Mar 22)

David Zayas photo

“I went to an acting school while I was a cop still…The moment I was involved in that world, it electrified me and I realized that it was something that I wanted to do”

David Zayas (1962) Puerto Rican actor

On attending acting school while serving as a police officer in “‘For 'Dexter' Star David Zayas, Acting Was A Long Shot Away” https://www.npr.org/2015/03/29/395982990/for-dexter-star-david-zayas-acting-was-a-long-shot-away in NPR (2015 Mar 29)

Julia Gillard photo

“There was no cataclysmic moment of revelation, but as I moved into my 20's, doubts grew and then overwhelmed...”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

I suspect there was nothing original about my journey, but it led me to a quiet, but firm belief:

that this mortal world, is it.

And, our measure as human beings, is entirely defined by what we do within it.
From the autobiography

“People like to hold onto life in many ways, but everything is transitory. This is it, right now. Youth doesn’t last forever, beauty doesn’t last forever, so appreciate it for the moment.”

Gronk (artist) (1954) American artist

On the loss of site-specific artwork in “Gronk by Marisela Norte” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/gronk/ in BOMB Magazine (2007 Jan 1)

Morgan Parker (writer) photo

“I’m existing on all of these different planes: in one moment I’m here, then I’m in the future, then I’m on a slave ship…”

Morgan Parker (writer) American poet

On code switching for Black people in “Morgan Parker: ‘In the back of my mind I’m on a slave ship, yet I’m also here just telling you how it is.’” https://www.guernicamag.com/miscellaneous-files-interview-morgan-parker/ in Guernica Magazine (2019 Mar 22)

“At such moments the voice of reason always sounds like blasphemy and dissenters are of the devil.”

Marion L. Starkey (1901–1991) American historian & writer

Source: The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (1949), Chapter 7, “John Proctor’s Jade” (p. 102)

Bhagawan Nityananda photo
Lou Dobbs photo
Lewis Mumford photo
Harry Gordon Selfridge photo
Friedrich Engels photo
Emil M. Cioran photo

“We should, out of decency, choose for ourselves the moment to disappear.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The New Gods (1969)

Thomas Sowell photo

“The greatness of a free-market economy is that it does not depend upon the wisdom of those who happen to be on top at the moment.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

“Rise and fall of a business,” Monterey Herald, December 30, 2000
2000s

Rosa Luxemburg photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo
Rubén Blades photo

“There's a moment in everybody's life...where you have more past than future, and then you better start organizing your time. So I thought maybe this is the time to do this. I'm not keen on people following me and recording my life and asking personal questions and what-not, but I figured I had to do it.”

Rubén Blades (1948) Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician

Source: On the documentary Ruben Blades Is Not My Name in "Inside Ruben Blades: New Documentary Showcases the Man Behind the Music" https://afropop.org/articles/inside-ruben-blades-new-documentary-showcases-the-man-behind-the-music in Afropop Worldwide (2018 Apr 10)

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“No one knows better than I with forty years' political experience that policy--particularly a revolutionary policy--has its tactical requirements. I recognised the Soviets in 1924. In 1934, I signed with them a treaty of commerce and friendship. I, therefore, understood that, especially as Ribbentrop's forecast about the non-intervention of Britain and France has not come off, you are obliged to avoid the second front [with Russia]. You have had to pay for this in that Russia has, without striking a blow, been the great profiteer of the war in Poland and the Baltic. But I, who was born a revolutionary and have not modified my revolutionary mentality, tell you that you cannot permanently sacrifice the principles of your revolution to the tactical requirements of a given moment... I have also the definite duty to add that a further step in the relations with Moscow would have catastrophic repercussions in Italy, where the unanimity of anti-Bolshevik feeling is absolute, granite-hard, and unbreakable. Permit me to think that this will not happen. The solution of your Lebensraum is in Russia, and nowhere else... The day when we shall have demolished Bolshevism we shall have kept faith with both our revolutions. Then it will be the turn of the great democracies, who will not be able to survive the cancer which gnaws them...”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1930s
Source: Letter to Hitler, quoted in Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm

Robert Walpole photo

“It is obvious, that the people of England are at this moment animated against each other, with a spirit of hatred and rancour. It behoves you, in the first place, to find a remedy for these distempers which at present are predominant in the civil constitution.”

Robert Walpole (1676–1745) British statesman

Source: Speech https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/walpole-robert-ii-1676-1745 in the House of Commons (10 January 1711)

Joe Biden photo
Joe Biden photo
Joe Biden photo
Joe Biden photo
Amanda Gorman photo
Carly Simon photo

“I pretended I was Cat Stevens. I started out with very Cat Stevensy chords, very abrupt. I was so stuck in the moment of being fearful so as a lesson to myself I said: ‘but we can never know about the days to come’. I didn’t know when the door-bell was going to ring. I liked that. It was all of a sudden a quarter to eight and I had written the whole song.”

Carly Simon (1943) American singer-songwriter, musician and author

On her song “Anticipation” in “Carly Simon explains ‘Anticipation’ was about Cat Stevens” http://www.music-news.com/news/Underground/101225/Carly-Simon-explains-Anticipation-was-about-Cat-Stevens in Music-News.com (31 Oct 2016)

Mashrafe Mortaza photo
Walker Percy photo
Margaret Cho photo
David Lynch photo

“When I started meditating, I was filled with anxieties and fears. I felt a sense of depression and anger.
I often took out this anger on my first wife. After I had been meditating for about two weeks, she came to me and said, "What's going on?" I was quiet for a moment. But finally I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "This anger, where did it go?"”

And I hadn't even realized that it had lifted.
I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity. It's suffocating, and that rubber stinks. But once you start meditating and diving within, the clown suit starts to dissolve. You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go. Then, when it dissolves, you have freedom.
Anger and depression and sorrow are beautiful things in a story, but they are like poison to the filmmaker or artist. They are like a vise grip on creativity. If you're in that grip, you can hardly get out of bed, much less experience the flow of creativity and ideas. You must have clarity to create. You have to be able to catch ideas.
Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit, p. 8
Catching the Big Fish (2006)

Bonar Law photo
John Cooper Clarke photo
James Thomson (B.V.) photo
Prevale photo

“Let your every moment be always better than the past, you live in the present for the future, you live with love, music, happiness and above all courage in difficult times.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Fa che ogni tuo istante sia sempre migliore di quello passato, si vive di presente per il futuro, si vive d'amore, musica, felicità e soprattutto coraggio nei momenti difficili.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“You are the emotion of life that is renewed every moment to your thought alone.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Sei l'emozione della vita che si rinnova ogni istante al solo tuo pensiero.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Give value to every moment you live, remember that time does not wait for anyone.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Dai valore ad ogni momento che vivi, ricorda che il tempo non aspetta nessuno.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“True feeling doesn't program any moment or know time. Born from the heart, the only author of its evolution.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il vero sentimento non programma alcun momento né conosce tempo. Nasce dal cuore, unico autore della sua evoluzione.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Music is the ideal companion in sad, difficult or joyful moments. The divine substance that creates emotions.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La musica è la compagna ideale nei momenti tristi, difficili o di gioia. La divina sostanza che crea emozione in ogni situazione.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“At night I compose thoughts and desires that describe moments of profound freedom. Infinite moments to live with you.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La notte compongo pensieri e desideri che descrivono attimi di profonda libertà. Attimi infiniti da vivere con te.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“The past has ended its time, the present is the moment, the future the becoming.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Il passato ha concluso il suo tempo, il presente è l'attimo, il futuro il divenire.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“In difficult moments, look for the sun inside you.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Nei momenti difficili, cerca il sole che è dentro di te.
Source: prevale.net

Jackson Browne photo
Lauren Jauregui photo

“Pride to me is a celebration of self. It is a celebration of being fully aware of and proud of your existence. And it's also historically a major monumental moment for the queer community. It was started by a black trans woman. And the movement is still around because we are still looking to feel empowered and still looking for visibility for all of our members.”

Lauren Jauregui (1996) Cuban-American singer and songwriter

[Lauren Jauregui Talks Coming Out in the Digital Age, Teases Debut Solo Album: 'I'm So Proud Of It', https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/pride/8517545/lauren-jauregui-teases-debut-solo-album-video, Billboard, June 27, 2019]

E.M. Forster photo

“There are moments when I feel Howards End peculiarly our own." "All the same, London's creeping.”

She pointed over the meadow--over eight or nine meadows, but at the end of them was a red rust. "You see that in Surrey and even Hampshire now," she continued. "I can see it from the Purbeck Downs. And London is only part of something else, I'm afraid. Life's going to be melted down, all over the world." Margaret knew that her sister spoke truly. Howards End, Oniton, the Purbeck Downs, the Oderberge, were all survivals, and the melting-pot was being prepared for them. Logically, they had no right to be alive. One's hope was in the weakness of logic. Were they possibly the earth beating time?
Source: Howards End (1910), Ch. 44

Honoré de Balzac photo

“Crime and madness have some similarity. Seeing the prisoners of the Conciergerie in the courtyard, or seeing the mad in the garden of a nursing home, it's the same thing. Both walk around, avoiding each other, glancing at each other at least singularly, atrociously, according to their thoughts of the moment, never cheerful or serious; because they know each other or they fear each other. The expectation of a condemnation, remorse, anxieties give walkers in the courtyard a worried and a haggard look of madmen. Consummate criminals alone have an assurance which resembles the tranquility of an honest life, the sincerity of a pure conscience.”

et Misères des courtisanes (The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans) (1837-1847), part IV. La dernière Incarnation de Vautrin (The Last Incarnation of Vautrin) https://books.google.ca/books?id=ajtOAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Splendeurs+et+Mis%C3%A8res+des+Coutisanes+Sc%C3%A8nes+de+la+Vie+parisienne&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq69XJuJTvAhXrMlkFHcxvDVgQ6AEwCHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&f=falseSplendeurs, "Le Préau de la Conciergerie" ("The Courtyard of the Conciergerie") (chapter title).
Original: (fr) Le crime et la folie ont quelque similitude. Voir les prisonniers de la Conciergerie au préau, ou voir des fous dans le jardin d'une maison de santé, c'est une même chose. Les uns et les autres se promènent en s'évitant, se jettent des regards au moins siguliers, atroces, selon leurs pensées du moment, jamais gais ni sérieux ; car ils se connaissent ou ils se craignent. L'attente d'une condamnation, les remords, les anxiétés donnent aux promeneurs du préau l'air inquiet et hagard des fous. Les criminels consommés ont seuls une assurance qui ressemble à la tranquillité d'une vie honnête, à la sincérité d'une conscience pure.

“My favorite scene is the one I’m shooting at the moment. When people ask me which of my movies is my favorite, I always say, “the next one.””

Kieth Merrill (1940) American filmmaker

Perhaps the same is true of every scene. The next one is perfect. It is finished in my mind without a flaw. Untainted by the reality of time running out, actors forgetting their lines, light dropping fast, wagon stuck in the mud or mismatched piece of clothing that must be found and brought to set.
Kieth Merrill Talks About His Greatest Hits https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-11923/ (December 14, 2012)

Auguste Rodin photo
Sara Shane photo

“All the experience I had in television, radio, theater, stage and films gave me confidence in front of crowds. Because of that, I can talk to an audience of a thousand people without a moment's nervousness, and talk without a script for hours.”

Sara Shane (1928–2022) American actress

Interview with Elaine Hollingsworth https://web.archive.org/web/20071003020618/http://www.tarzan.cc/int-sarashane.html (July 9, 2007)

Felix Adler photo
Felix Adler photo
Felix Adler photo
Richard Crossman photo
Pierre Bouvier photo

“We are living in a moment in which our physicality, our being there is replaced by our virtual images and our voice, even this impalpable. Our being flesh and blood has to deal with the absence that is the true presence in these times”

Salvatore Garau (1953) Italian artist

referring to his 'I Am', The invisible sculpture, Garau make in 2021 during Covid19 era
Quote of Garau, in https://it.finance.yahoo.com/notizie/venduta-scultura-che-non-esiste-110928142.html 'Venduta scultura che non esiste: Salvatore Garau e l’immateriale' 2021, Yahoo Finance, May 2021

Hermann Hesse photo
Henri Nouwen photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo
Mary Pickford photo
Wayne W. Dyer photo
Michelle Obama photo
Gautama Buddha photo
John Mulaney photo
Edith Sitwell photo

“The poet is a brother speaking to a brother of "a moment of their other lives"”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

a moment that had been buried beneath the dust of the busy world.
"The Poet's Vision" (1959)

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Nithyananda photo
Prevale photo

“Is exactly in the difficult moments that you have to clench your teeth so as not to give up the grip that keeps you alive.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) È proprio nei momenti difficili che devi stringere i denti per non mollare la presa che ti tiene in vita.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“In difficult moments, be an example of courage.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Nei momenti difficili, sii esempio di coraggio.
Source: prevale.net

Maximilien Robespierre photo
Gabriel Byrne photo

“The priest’s breath was sour and hot as he moved towards me…Then there was blackness...I remembered every single moment up to a point…Then it’s concreted over. What’s buried there? Is it something worth exhuming?..Yes. Maybe if I say it, it will lose its power over me.”

Gabriel Byrne (1950) Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator

On confronting the memories of his sexual abuse by a priest in “Gabriel Byrne: 'There’s a shame about men speaking out. A sense that if you were abused, it was your fault'” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/08/gabriel-byrne-its-an-obscenity-to-tell-innocent-children-theyre-going-to-hell in The Guardian (2020 Nov 8)

Joe Sacco photo

“What I try to do with my images is just give the reader a real feel for a place…It's very visceral. You open the page, and you are right there in the moment.”

Joe Sacco (1960) Maltese-American cartoonist and journalist; pioneer of the Non-Fiction Graphic Novel (b. 1960)

On what he aimed for with his book The Great War in “A Panorama Of Devastation: Drawing Of WWI Battle Spans 24 Feet” https://www.npr.org/2013/11/10/243068448/a-panorama-of-devastation-drawing-of-wwi-battle-spans-24-feet in NPR (2013 Nov 10)

Nithyananda photo
Kim Hyon-hui photo

“The moment I boarded the flight I was thinking, 'This is an enemy state.'”

Kim Hyon-hui (1962) former North Korean agent

But then, placing the bomb, I was nervous, anxious, scared of being caught. I had a brief moment thinking that all the people in this plane will die, but I was frightened to even have such feelings. I wasn’t supposed to have such feelings. I was trained only to take orders like a robot. I tried to get rid of the feelings by thinking that for the sake of reunification these people had to be sacrificed. In North Korea, you can’t have these doubts, because if you do, it means your ideology has been corrupted and you’ll be executed or sent to a prison camp.
Interview with NBC (23 January 2018)

Jon Kabat-Zinn photo
Opal Tometi photo