Quotes about timing
page 6

Allen Ginsberg photo
Yasunari Kawabata photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Leonard Bernstein photo

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist
Cher photo

“I love having boyfriends. A girl can wait for the right man to come along – but in the meantime that doesn’t mean she can’t have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.”

Cher (1946) American singer and actress

"Cher Genius", an interview in You magazine, the Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper (28 November 2010), interviewed by Elaine Lipworth in Las Vegas.

Oscar Wilde photo

“Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

George Orwell photo

“At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”

"The Lion and the Unicorn" (1941)
Source: Why I Write
Context: Is the English press honest or dishonest? At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. Yet I do not suppose there is one paper in England that can be straightforwardly bribed with hard cash. In the France of the Third Republic all but a very few of the newspapers could notoriously be bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese.

Christopher Paolini photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"The Threatened", The Book of Sand [El Libro de arena] (1975)

Richard Branson photo

“As soon as something stops being fun, I think it’s time to move on. Life is too short to be unhappy. Waking up stressed and miserable is not a good way to live.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

Source: Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons In Life

Frederick Buechner photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo
Oprah Winfrey photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Time is the tiger that devours me, but I am that tiger.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature
Greg Mortenson photo

“When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.”

Greg Mortenson (1957) American mountaineer and humanitarian

Source: Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Yukio Mishima photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“It takes a very long time to become young.”

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

On met très longtemps à devenir jeune.
As quoted by Jean Cocteau The Hand of a Stranger (Journal d'un Inconnu). Horizon Press. 1959 [1953]. http://books.google.com/books?id=HxBJAQAAIAAJ
1950s

Karen Blixen photo
Gabriel García Márquez photo
Brian Andreas photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Vladimir Putin photo
Yanni photo

“You do good work for a long-enough time, I believed, and you'd get noticed.”

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

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

Angelus Silesius photo

“Christ could be born a thousand times in Bethlehem – but all in vain until He is born in me.”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

As quoted in Messenger Of The Heart: The Book Of Angelus Silesius, With Observations By Frederick Franck (2005)

Nasreddin photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“Goethe as an old man: he was so very punctual. At that time he also wrote many things that were very punctual. The rounded thing is boring. Turn it as you may, it remains round and pretty.
I love the edges, the sharp lines, and fractures.
I show to him a picture of Dostoevsky. How ruptured, furrowed, tormented!
He looks like Michelangelo; the face of an endurer and a prophet.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Der alte Goethe: er war so pünktlich. Er schrieb damals auch vieles, was sehr pünktlich war. Das Runde ist langweilig. Dreh es wie du willst, es bleibt rund und schön.
Ich liebe Ecken, Kanten und Risse.
Ich lege ihm ein Bild von Dostojewski vor. Wie zerrissen, wie zerfurcht und zerhauen!
So sieht auch Michelangelo aus; ein Dulder- und Prophetengesicht.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Matka Tereza photo

“From now on you must pray for your people and yourself three times a day.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Mother Teresa, as quoted by Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 213
1980s

Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist photo

“The Russians were five times superior to us poor but brave Germans, both in numbers and in the superiority of their equipment. My immediate commander was Hitler himself. Unfortunately, Hitler's advice in those critical periods was invariably lousy.”

Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist (1881–1954) German general during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn (25 June 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews", Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellatel (2004).

Albert Schweitzer photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“I imagined I was God for a millisecond and became speechless for a long time.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Sounds of Imagination http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21407/Sounds_of_Imagination
From the poems written in English

Roberto Clemente photo
Ennius photo

“A sure friend is known in unsure times.”
Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

As quoted by Cicero in De Amicitia, Chapter XVII

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Stanisław Jerzy Lec photo

“Those who are ahead of their time often have to wait for it in uncomfortable quarters.”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish writer

As quoted in Power for the World (2010) by Wolfgang Palz, Foreword, p. xxi

Bertrand Russell photo

“All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Of Sir Richard Jebb, Some Cambridge Dons of the Nineties (1956)
1950s

Emil M. Cioran photo
Joseph Merrick photo
Michael Jackson photo

“My sons’ birthday; we have a grand feeding
Another sons thread ceremony is proceeding
Life is busy you know if you ever say
The death god will be laughing behind you, I say
Not eaten dinner, have not seen the favourite show
Some debtors are waiting to get my loan, No way
Once your purpose is over, no time is wasted away
Think meanwhile of Purandara Vittala with a bow.”

Purandara Dasa (1484–1564) Music composer

In this quote Dasa is warning against the inevitable when one is busy with worldly chores as given here[Narayan, M.K.V., Lyrical Musings on Indic Culture: A Sociology Study of Songs of Sant Purandara Dasa, http://books.google.com/books?id=-r7AxJp6NOYC&pg=PA79, 1 January 2010, Readworthy, 978-93-80009-31-5, 81]

Socrates photo
Russell Brand photo
G. H. Hardy photo

“Mathematicians have constructed a very large number of different systems of geometry, Euclidean or non-Euclidean, of one, two, three, or any number of dimensions. All these systems are of complete and equal validity. They embody the results of mathematicians' observations of their reality, a reality far more intense and far more rigid than the dubious and elusive reality of physics. The old-fashioned geometry of Euclid, the entertaining seven-point geometry of Veblen, the space-times of Minkowski and Einstein, are all absolutely and equally real. …There may be three dimensions in this room and five next door. As a professional mathematician, I have no idea; I can only ask some competent physicist to instruct me in the facts.
The function of a mathematician, then, is simply to observe the facts about his own intricate system of reality, that astonishingly beautiful complex of logical relations which forms the subject-matter of his science, as if he were an explorer looking at a distant range of mountains, and to record the results of his observations in a series of maps, each of which is a branch of pure mathematics. …Among them there perhaps none quite so fascinating, with quite the astonishing contrasts of sharp outline and shade, as that which constitutes the theory of numbers.”

G. H. Hardy (1877–1947) British mathematician

"The Theory of Numbers," Nature (Sep 16, 1922) Vol. 110 https://books.google.com/books?id=1bMzAQAAMAAJ p. 381

Gloria Estefan photo

“... My best friend [as a young girl] made this mole on my face, because she would get in a fight with me and scratch me -- by the third time the scab came off the [mole] was there...”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Hallmark Channel's This Morning with Naomi Judd (January 29, 2006)
2007, 2008

Eugene O'Neill photo
Zakir Hussain (musician) photo

“Every time I play with someone, just interacting with them points me to a different nook or a corner in my playing that I had overlooked.”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

in pdf, Zakir Hussain and Master Musicians of India, 12 December 2013, UMS Youth Education Programme Organization http://ums.org/assets/zakir_FINAL.pdf,
Quote

Karel Čapek photo
William Thomson photo
Barack Obama photo
George Orwell photo
Ivo Andrič photo
Chris Colfer photo

“Every time I get injured I measure it's severity by asking myself 'Would this stop me from going to Disneyland?”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Personal Quotes 2009–2012

George Orwell photo
Kenzaburō Ōe photo
Michelle Phillips photo
Dadabhai Naoroji photo

“Materially: The political drain, up to this time, from India to England, of above, 500,000,000, at the lowest computation, in principal alone…The further continuation of this drain at the rate, at present, of above, 12,000,000 per annum, with a tendency to increase.”

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) Indian politician

Above two quoted by Dadabhai Naoroji as the estimated the economic costs and drain of resources from India, is an extract from one of his essays, “The Benefits of British Rule, 1871” in Drain of Wealth during British Raj, B Shantanu, 6 February 2006, 4 December 2013, Ivarta.com http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_060206.htm#_edn5,
Drain Theory

Penélope Cruz photo
Anne Frank photo
Pierre-Auguste Renoir photo
Gilles Villeneuve photo

“I will drive flat out all the time … I love racing.”

Gilles Villeneuve (1950–1982) Canadian racecar driver

Henry, pg. 25

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
A.S. Neill photo
Walter O'Brien photo
Jean-Paul Marat photo
Eminem photo
Michael Jackson photo
Juan Donoso Cortés photo

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Takeda Shingen photo
Lisa Gerrard photo
Cate Blanchett photo

“I think marriage is all about timing. Getting married is insanity; I mean, it's a risk – who knows if you're going to be together forever? But you both say, 'We're going to take this chance, in the same spirit.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

Cate Blanchett: 'Getting Married Is Insanity', People Magazine, 12 January 2007 http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20008317,00.html,

Pedro Calderón de la Barca photo

“But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken.”

Mas, sea verdad o sueño,
obrar bien es lo que importa.
Si fuere verdad, por serlo;
si no, por ganar amigos
para cuando despertemos.
Segismundo, Act III, l. 236.
La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream)

Martin Luther photo
Emmeline Pankhurst photo
Karel Čapek photo
Angela of Foligno photo

“Even if at times I can still experience outwardly some little sadness and joy, nonetheless there is in my soul a chamber in which no joy, sadness, or enjoyment from any virtue, or delight over anything that can be named, enters. This is where the All Good, which is not any particular good, resides, and it is so much the All Good that there is no other good. Although I blaspheme by speaking about it -- and I speak about it so badly because I cannot find words to express it -- I nonetheless affirm that in this manifestation of God I discover the complete truth. In it, I understand and possess the complete truth that is in heaven and in hell, in the entire world, in every place, in all things, in every enjoyment in heaven and in every creature. And I see all this is so truly and certainly that no one could convince me otherwise. Even if the whole world were to tell me otherwise, I would laugh it to scorn. Furthermore, I saw the One who is and how he is the being of all creatures. I also saw how he made me capable of understanding those realities I have just spoken about better than when I saw them in that darkness which used to delight me so. Moreover, in that state I see myself as alone with God, totally cleansed, totally sanctified, totally true, totally upright, totally certain, totally celestial in him. And when I am in that state, I do not remember anything else…”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, pp. 214-216

Seal (musician) photo
Martin Luther photo
George Orwell photo
Mark Satin photo
Oscar Levant photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.
Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And the decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Variant translation: A loss of courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days...
Harvard University address (1978)

Randy Pausch photo
Francesco Balilla Pratella photo

“All innovators, logically speaking, have been Futurists in relation to their time. Palestrina would have thought that Bach was crazy, and Bach would have thought Beethoven the same, and Beethoven would have thought Wagner equally so.
Rossini liked to boast that he had finally understood the music of Wagner—by reading it backward; Verdi, after listening to the overture to Tannhäuser, wrote to a friend that Wagner was mad.
So we stand at the window of a glorious mental hospital, even while we unhesitatingly declare that counterpoint and the fugue, which even today are still considered the most important branches of musical instruction…”

Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880–1955) Italian composer

Original text:
Tutti gli innovatori sono stati logicamente futuristi, in relazione ai loro tempi. Palestrina avrebbe giudicato pazzo Bach, e così Bach avrebbe giudicato Beethoven, e così Beethoven avrebbe giudicato Wagner.
Rossini si vantava di aver finalmente capito la musica di Wagner leggendola a rovescio! Verdi, dopo un’audizione dell’ouverture del Tannhäuser, in una lettera a un suo amico chiamava Wagner matto.
Siamo dunque alla finestra di un manicomio glorioso, mentre dichiariamo, senza esitare, che il contrappunto e la fuga, ancor oggi considerati come il ramo più importante dell’insegnamento musicale...
Source: Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music (1911), p. 80

Frank Gehry photo

“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

Frank Gehry (1929) Canadian-American (b.1929)

Source: Kim Johnson Gross, ‎Jeff Stone, ‎Julie V. Iovine (1993) Home. p. 43.

Françoise Sagan photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Henry VIII of England photo
Jackson Pollock photo
Francis Xavier photo

“Almost from the time of Xavier's actual presence on the Coast, the work of legend-building began, and it came to be firmly believed that he possessed miraculous powers, which extended even to the raising of the dead. Xavier never made such extravagant claims for himself.”

Francis Xavier (1506–1552) Navarrese Basque Roman Catholic saint and missionary

Neill, S. (2004). A history of Christianity in India: The beginning to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Erwin Rommel photo

“The art of concentrating strength at one point, forcing a breakthrough, rolling up and securing the flanks on either side, and then penetrating like lightning, before the enemy has time to react, deep into his rear.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Strategies he promoted which have been called Blitzkrieg (Lightning War), as quoted in Europe Since 1914 (1966) by Gordon Alexander Craig

Anna Kingsford photo
Giovanni Gentile photo
Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Benjamin Mkapa photo

“We have a propensity for starting and joining all kinds of organisations, the result was that we were spending more time in conferences than implementing the decisions.”

Benjamin Mkapa (1938) Tanzanian politician and former president

Commenting on Tanzania's withdrawal from COMESA. 2000-09-04 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/909933.stm
2000