Quotes about timing
page 12

Frédéric Bastiat photo

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

Lorsque la Spoliation est devenue le moyen d’existence d’une agglomération d’hommes unis entre eux par le lien social, ils se font bientôt une loi qui la sanctionne, une morale qui la glorifie.
Economic sophisms, 2nd series (1848), ch. 1 Physiology of plunder ("Sophismes économiques", 2ème série (1848), chap. 1 "Physiologie de la spoliation").
Economic Sophisms (1845–1848)

Oscar Wilde photo
Brian Andreas photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Vladimir Nabokov photo
Edith Sitwell photo

“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty… But I am too busy thinking about myself.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

As quoted in The Observer (30 April 1950)

Karen Blixen photo
Louise Labé photo
Isaac Newton photo
Rick Warren photo
Stephen King photo

“Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”

Variant: Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.
Source: The Green Mile

Hayao Miyazaki photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Quoted as an attribution in Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (2013), p. 268
Attributed

Eleanor Roosevelt photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Mark Twain photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Arianna Huffington photo
Laura Ingalls Wilder photo
John Steinbeck photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

45
The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

Vladimir Nabokov photo
Tennessee Williams photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo

“that which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in time.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: The Home and the World

Stephen King photo

“Time's the thief of memory”

Source: The Gunslinger

“If something you want is slow to come to you, it can be for only one reason: You are spending more time focused upon its absence than you are about its presence. If”

Esther Hicks (1948) American writer

Source: The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham

Stephen King photo

“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.”

Source: The Green Mile

Henri Matisse photo
Jean De La Fontaine photo

“On the wings of Time grief flies away.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

Sur les ailes du Temps la tristesse s'envole.
Book VI (1668), fable 21.
Fables (1668–1679)
Variant: Sadness flies away on the wings of time.

Jimmy Carter photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Mark Twain photo
Alicia Keys photo
William Saroyan photo

“In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”

The Time of Your Life (1939)
Context: Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in the wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
Context: In the time of your life, live — so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in the wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.

Lois Lowry photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Barack Obama photo
Allen Ginsberg photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Mark Twain photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Bruce Lee photo

“Balance your thoughts with action. — If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 43

Mark Twain photo
William Shakespeare photo

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

Jaques, Act II, scene vii.
Variant: All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.
Source: As You Like It (1599–1600)

Aristotle photo

“Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Source: ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics

Sadhguru photo
Tad Williams photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“Fate can be one mean god at times.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

Tennessee Williams photo

“The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Quoted in "Tennessee Williams" in Profiles (1990) by Kenneth Tynan (first published as a magazine article in February 1956)

Terry Pratchett photo
Barry Lyga photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Viktor E. Frankl photo
Albert Schweitzer photo

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Variant: Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.

Leonora Carrington photo
George Washington photo

“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Fifth annual Message http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washs05.asp (3 December 1793)
1790s
Source: The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799 Volume 39 (General Index O-Z List of Letters) - Leather Bound

Tennessee Williams photo

“Time doesn't take away from friendship, nor does separation.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Source: Memoirs

Jean Webster photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“I crave time in all its duration, and I
want to be myself unconditionally.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Variant translation: In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history" — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.

Christopher Paolini photo
David Levithan photo
Barry Lyga photo
Isaac Newton photo
Stephen Hawking photo

“So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking (2010)

Hanif Kureishi photo

“At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you, too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation?”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau

Jimmy Carter photo
James O'Barr photo

“It can't rain all the time.”

Source: The Crow

Terry Pratchett photo
Thomas Mann photo

“I stand between two worlds, am at home in neither, and in consequence have rather a hard time of it.”

Source: Tonio Kröger (1903), Ch. 9, as translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan
Context: I stand between two worlds, am at home in neither, and in consequence have rather a hard time of it. You artists call me a commoner, and commoners feel tempted to arrest me … I do not know which wounds me more bitterly. Commoners are stupid; but you worshippers of beauty who call me phlegmatic and without yearning, ought to reflect that there is an artistry so deep, so primordial and elemental, that no yearning seems to it sweeter and more worthy of tasting than that for the raptures of common-placeness.

Douglas Adams photo
Hugh Laurie photo
Rick Riordan photo
Harlan Ellison photo
Groucho Marx photo

“Time wounds all heels.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian
Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.”

Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989) American historian and author

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

T.D. Jakes photo
Frank Herbert photo
Alice Sebold photo