Quotes about timing
page 5

“… anyone who attempts to do both, to adjust to his group and at the same time pursue his individual goal, becomes neurotic.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Time

“It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century

World, Time

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Life, Children, People, Time

“If her rump were any stiffer, she'd break it every time she rides', I thought to Pounce.
'If she fell on the steps, they would never be able to put her together again', he replied.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

Time

“It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a long time that their hands were clasped together. He had time to learn every detail of her hand.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Learning, Time

“For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a "Reserved" sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Time, Heart

“I think it's time you met Percy. - Annabeth”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

Thinking, Time

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Μηκέθ᾽ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.
X, 16
Variant: Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X

Time, Wise, For Men

“The most common one-liner in the Bible is, "Do not be afraid." Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Time

“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

People, Problem, Time

“I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

As quoted in Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion (1984) by Leslie Halliwell
Variant: I find TV very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.

Books, Education, Time, Reading

“And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Widely circulated on the internet, but no actual text to tie it back to Eckhart, as of yet.
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Meister Eckhart / Disputed

Time, New Year

“When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Teachers, Appearance, Time, Patience

“Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were – Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.”

Beatrix Potter book The Tale of Peter Rabbit

The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902)

Time

“Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you — you do not even suspect that the day has already dawned outside.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Letter to the Secretariat of the Soviet Writers’ Union (12 November 1969) as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970) “Expulsion".

Time

“A world of "if"s, but it would make no difference. If I could go back in time… but I couldn't. The past was behind me. The best thing now would be to stop looking over my shoulder. It was time to forget the past and look to the present and future.”

Darren Shan book Cirque du Freak

Source: A Living Nightmare

World, Time, Past, Future

“As a matter of fact," the other voice went on, "if you do tie her up from time to time, or whip her just a little, and she begins to like it, that’s no good either. You have to get past the pleasure stage, until you reach the stage of tears.”

Pauline Réage book Story of O

Source: Story of O

Pleasure, Tear, Time, Past

“If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

God, Time

“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Life, War, People, World

“Don't make it sound like that. Like some ordinary sort of grief. It's not like that. They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite. Over. This is a fresh wound every day.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Time

“I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Quoted allegedly "From da Vinci`s Notes" in Jon Wynne-Tyson: The Extended Circle. A Dictionary of Humane Thought. Centaur Press 1985, p. 65 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=1mMbAQAAIAAJ&q=murder. Actually the quote is not authentic but made up from a novel by Dmitri Merejkowski (w:Dmitry Merezhkovsky) entitled "The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci" (La Résurrecton de Dieux 1901), translated from Russian into English by Herbert Trench. G.P. Putnam's Sons New York and London, The Knickerbocker Press. There, in Book (i.e. chapter) VI, entitled The Diary of Giovanni Boltraffio, one finds the following: The master [Leonardo da Vinci] permits harm to no living creatures, not even to plants. Zoroastro http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Masini tells me that from an early age he has abjured meat, and says that the time shall come when all men such as he will be content with a vegetable diet, and will think on the murder of animals as now they think on the murder of men ( p. 226 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=g_pa0OaYX64C&pg=PA226). However, despite the quote's false attribution, da Vinci was in fact a vegetarian. Misattributed

Men, Age, Time, Animals

“You can live a whole life time never being awake.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Life, Time

“The very essence of dhyana, or meditativeness, is that you push yourself to the highest possible intensity where, after some time, there is no effort. Now meditation will not be an act, but a natural consequence of the intensity that has been achieved. You can simply be. It is in these absolutely non-compulsive states of existence that the necessary atmosphere is set for the blossoming of an individual into a cosmic possibility. If”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Nature, Effort, Time

“A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

Travel, Suffering, Time

“If a man, having lashed two hulls together, is crossing a river, and an empty boat happens along and bumps into him, no matter how hot-tempered the man may be, he will not get angry. But if there should be someone in the other boat, then he will shout out to haul this way or veer that. If his first shout is unheeded, he will shout again, and if that is not heard, he will shout a third time, this time with a torrent of curses following. In the first instance, he wasn't angry; now in the second he is. Earlier he faced emptiness, now he faces occupancy. If a man could succeed in making himself empty, and in that way wander through the world, then who could do him harm?”

Zhuangzi (-369–-286 BC) classic Chinese philosopher

World, Way, Time

“Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

Time, Dead

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Beauty, Time, Past, Beauty

“In a way, it made him sad. He couldn't help but think that a hundred times zero was still nothing.”

Louis Sachar book Holes

Source: Holes

Sadness, Way, Thinking, Time

“She was dull, unattractive, couldn't tell the time, count money or tie her own shoe laces… But I loved her”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Love, Money, Shoe, Time

“The only moral lesson which is suited for a child--the most important lesson for every time of life--is this: 'Never hurt anybody.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Source: Emile or On Education

Life, Time, Hurt

“This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Love, Time, Wise

“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IV, 43
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Strong, Time

“Any one can get angry — that is easy — or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.”

Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics

Book II, 1109a.27.
Variant translation: Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
As quoted in The Child: At Home and School (1944) by Edith M. Leonard, Lillian E. Miles, and Catherine S. Van der Kar, p. 203
Nicomachean Ethics

Money, Way, Motivation, Time

“Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.”

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

Love, Understanding, Time

“I'm not close to people, I am close to myself. I spend a lot of time inside.”

Henry Rollins book Black Coffee Blues

Source: Black Coffee Blues

People, Time

“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes relentlessly persecute them, and treat their teachings with malicious hostility, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaign of lies and slanders. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping them, while at the same time emasculating the revolutionary doctrine of its content, vulgarizing it and blunting its revolutionary edge.'”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

1.1, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
(1917)
Source: The State and Revolution

Death, Hostility, Time

“This was my first lesson about gambling: if you see somebody winning all the time, he isn't gambling, he's cheating. Later on in life, if I were continuously losing in any gambling situation, I would watch very closely.”

Malcolm X book The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Life, Time, Cheating

“For some, time passes slowly. An hour can seem like an eternity. For others, there was never enough. For Jesse Tuck, it didn't exist.”

Natalie Babbitt book Tuck Everlasting

Source: Tuck Everlasting

Time

“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism

History, Effort, Time

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one can enjoy the same good things for the first time several times.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.580
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Memory, Time

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Time, Beauty

“No matter how many times you get knocked down, keep getting back up. God sees your resolve. He sees your determination. And when you do everything you can do, that’s when God will step in and do what you can’t do.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God, Time

“There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Confessions

Source: Confessions

Time

“They have been promising us for a long time — in every culture — that they are going to take us to heaven. They promise heaven because they are making a hell out of this place.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Of Mystics & Mistakes

Hell, Time

“the vase once had an extremely common use. Most probably it was used for cooking-oil. It was made by a designer of those times, when art and life went hand in hand and there was no such thing as a work of art to look at and just any old thing to use. I”

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) Italian artist and designer

Source: Design as Art

Life, Art, Time, Cooking

“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

World, Time

“Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Source: Real Frank Zappa Book

Music, Time

“Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never think about anything as much as I think about you.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 224

Hope, Thinking, Time, Training

“Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Episode 2, Chapter 13-14
The Power of Myth (1988)
Context: Campbell: Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. There's a wonderful formula that the Buddhists have for the Bodhisattva, the one whose being (sattva) is illumination (bodhi), who realizes his identity with eternity and at the same time his participation in time. And the attitude is not to withdraw from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but to realize that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder and to come back and participate in it. "All life is sorrowful" is the first Buddhist saying, and it is. It wouldn't be life if there were not temporality involved which is sorrow. Loss, loss, loss.
Moyers: That's a pessimistic note.
Campbell: Well, you have to say yes to it, you have to say it's great this way. It's the way God intended it.

Life, Thinking, Time

“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

World, Music, Feeling, Distant

“Only time(whatever that may be) will tell.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time

Time

“On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Time

“It is early, early morning. It's that time when it's still dark but you know the day is coming. Blue is bleeding through black. Stars are dying.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: Underdog

Star, Time

“Don't think of them now. Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them. You're here. It's our time and our life, not theirs. Don't struggle not to be happy. You are."

- John Gault”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Life, Pain, Happiness, Thinking

“I don't need time, I need a deadline.”

Duke Ellington (1899–1974) American jazz musician, composer and band leader

Time

“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Time, Motivational, For women, Deep

“Sleep is not, death is not; Who seem to die Live. House you were born in, Friends of your spring-time, old man and young maid, Day's toil and it's guerdon, They are all vanishing, Fleeing to fables, Cannot be moored”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Death, Spring, Sleep, Time

“You can't stop time. You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down.”

Kim Edwards book The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Light, Time

“The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!”

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

People, Time

“In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.”

Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American businessman

Business, Time, Anger, For Team

“Spending time with God is the key to our strength and success in all areas of life. Be sure that you never try to work God into your schedule, but always work your schedule around Him.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Life, God, Time, Success

“This is how it should be done: lodge yourself on a stratum, experiment with the opportunities it offers, find an advantageous place on it, find potential movements of deterritorialization, possible lines of flight, experience them, produce flow conjunctions here and there, try out continuums of intensities segment by segment, have a small plot of new land at all times.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

Time

“People are crazy and times are strange… I used to care but things have changed”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Essential Bob Dylan (2000), Things Have Changed (recorded 1999)
Variant: I used to care, but things have changed.
Context: People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range,
I used to care, but things have changed.

People, Change, Time

“I cannot waste time in these classes and these books, memorizing the weak assumptions of lesser mortals.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

Books, Time

“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Sadness, Time, Sad, Depressing

“One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Time

“Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.”

Sigmund Freud book The Future of an Illusion

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 7

Religion, Support, Time

“Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Love, Time

“These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

Source: Work

People, Idea, Nature, Time

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time… give it, give it all, give it now.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Time

“There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Light, Time

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Time

“You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C6K0umwZwo by Diane Sawyer (1994)

Time

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Time

“Revolution is not a one time event.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Time

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Caesar, Act II, scene ii.
Source: Julius Caesar (1599)

Death, Time

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

Ian Fleming book Goldfinger

Variant: Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action'.
Source: Auric Goldfinger, Ch. 14 : Things That Go Thump In The Night

Time

“Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.

I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Boy, Time

“If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, take it personally. Take it personally because it is personal!”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Time, Personality

“The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another's heart.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Love, Life, People, Memory

“And then many things became very clear… we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Life, Learning, Time

“they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

Dogs, Time

“You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.”

Nina Simone (1933–2003) American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist

Time, Help

“The Guchkov government is held in a vice: bound by the interests of capital, it is compelled to strive to continue the predatory, robber war, to protect the monstrous profits of capital and the landlords, to restore the monarchy. Bound by its revolutionary origin and by the need for an abrupt change from tsarism to democracy, pressed by the bread-hungry and peace-hungry masses, the government is compelled to lie, to wriggle, to play for time, to “proclaim” and promise (promises are the only things that are very cheap even at a time of madly rocketing prices) as much as possible and do as little as possible, to make concessions with one hand and to withdraw them with the other. Under”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: Revolution at the Gates: Selected Writings of Lenin from 1917

War, Lie, Peace, Democracy

“It got so that when he closed his eyes, letters and words danced in his mind. He thought of little else during that time.”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Source: Eragon

Time, Dance

“SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN FATE, OTHERS DON’T. I DO, and I don’t. It may seem at times as if invisible fingers move us about like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown.”

Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer

Source: Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft

Fate, People, Time

“Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

Source: First Test

Time

“The soul exists partly in eternity and partly in time.”

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) Italian philosopher

Soul, Time

“There is a life behind the personality that uses personalities as masks. There are times when life puts off the mask and deep answers unto deep.”

Dion Fortune (1890–1946) British occultist and author

Source: The Goat-Foot God

Life, Time, Personality

“In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.”

Carlos Castaneda book Journey to Ixtlan

Source: Journey to Ixtlan

Death, World, Decision, Time

“As wave is driven by wave
And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind; what never was is now;
And every passing moment is renewed.”

Ovid Metamorphoses

Source: Metamorphoses

Time

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

No source for this quote among Orwell's writings has yet been located, and the earliest published source of this phrase found on Google Books is this snippet https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=kWD0AAAAMAAJ&q=%22truth+is+a+revolutionary+act%22&dq=%22truth+is+a+revolutionary+act%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs0MKSqpbKAhWH0iYKHXj6ABUQ6AEIJjAD from p. 5 of Science Dimension, Volumes 14–18 (1982) published by the National Research Council Canada. Quote Investigator has an article "In a Time of Universal Deceit – Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/24/truth-revolutionary/ indicating their attempts to trace the quote. The earliest similar remarks they had found were in a 1982 book titled “Partners in Ecocide: Australia’s Complicity in the Uranium Cartel” by Venturino Giorgio Venturini, where the word “universal” was omitted, and a specific originating text was not identified: "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." Variants: During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act. Truth is treason in an empire of lies. (Often attributed by Ron Paul to Orwell but never sourced.) In the mid-19th century Karl Georg von Raumer made a remark, which has a similar meaning. In Geschichte der Pedagogic (1855), he states: 'Jede keimende Wahrheit ist revolutionär gegen den entgegenstehenden herrschenden Irrthum, jede keimende Tugend revolutionär gegen das im Schwange gehende, ihr widersprechende Laster' which translates as: "Every germinating truth is revolutionary against the opposing ruling error, every germinating virtue is revolutionary against popular contradictory lies." In 1898 French socialist Jean Jaurès said, "When a society, when an institution, lives only by lies, truth is revolutionary." He was speaking with reference to the ongoing Dreyfus Affair. The statement is quoted in Ruth Harris, The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France (2010), p. 262. (She cites Le petit Meridional, 3 July 1898, as the original source.) This seems very close in spirit and in phrasing to the pseudo-Orwell quotation. (The cumulative index to the many volumes of Orwell's writing compiled and edited by Peter Davison does not reveal any direct references to Jaurès or the Dreyfus Affair.) Disputed Variant: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Truth, Universe, Time

“Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end.”

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

Time

“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry… no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

Life, Death, Men, War

“Women’s loyalty has to be earned with trust and affection, rather than barbaric rituals. The time has come to leave the old ways of suffering behind”

Waris Dirie book Desert Flower

Source: Desert Flower

Women, Way, Suffering, Time

“Time is the brush of God, as he paints his masterpiece on the heart of humanity.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

God, Time, Heart, Painting

“Regret for wasted time is more wasted time”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

Time

“Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die.

True courage is about facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.”

Robin Hobb book The Mad Ship

Source: The Mad Ship

Life, Death, Courage, Thinking

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Noah Brooks, scribe for the Sacramento Union, writing in the Harper’s Weekly for July 1865, 3 months after Lincoln had died, reported that the Lincoln once said this, at an unspecified date; as reported in "Did Abraham Lincoln Actually Say That Obama Quote?" by James M. Cornelius, The Daily Beast (9 August 2012) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/08/did-abraham-lincoln-actually-say-that-obama-quote.html Posthumous attributions

Wisdom, Time

“Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth, Act I, scene iii.

Time

Quotes about timing page 5

Quotes about timing
page 5