“silence serves time, for you and yourself,
though it tells nothing, it gives everything”
Josephs Quartzy (1999) Tanzanian actor
Source: Sweetest song I know
Quotes about timing page 9
Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer
Source: https://www.facebook.com/NealeDonaldWalsch/posts/pfbid02YdVimv896xTUxM8Tx4Q27WXzEDdsZf4rd4bowY41iUqhn5CqutupKy8oHX6TPiJhl
“Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases.”
Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time
Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 9
Context: Just like a computer, we must remember things in the order in which entropy increases. This makes the second law of thermodynamics almost trivial. Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases. You can’t have a safer bet than that!
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Said often during his presidency (1981–1989)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
“Deeds need time, even after they are done, in order to be seen or heard.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Source: The Gay Science
Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War
Speech in the House of Commons, February 27, 1945 "Crimea Conference" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1945/feb/27/crimea-conference#column_1294; in The Second World War, Volume VI: Triumph and Tragedy (1954), Chapter XXIII – Yalta: Finale. <br class="br">The Second World War (1939–1945)
“The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer
“If you want anything done right you will have to see to it yourself every time.”
Charles Portis book True Grit
Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 5, p. 75 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'
“Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men
Variant: Now... if you trust in yourself... and believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you'll still get beaten by people who spenttime working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.
Source: The Wee Free Men
“In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast.”
Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant
The Naked Civil Servant (1968)
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket. Civil rights means you’re asking Uncle Sam to treat you right. Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth. And any time any one violates your human rights, you can take them to the world court.
“The greatest cure for love is still that time honoured medicine - love returned.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.”
Andrew Marvell To His Coy Mistress
Source: To His Coy Mistress (1650-1652)
Context: Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
"Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" (31 March 1968)
1960s
Variant: There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.
“Silence is deep as Eternity, speech is shallow as Time.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
“Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about.”
Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur
“We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
“Oh, I love hugging. I wish I was an octopus, so I could hug 10 people at a time!”
Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer
“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter
“There is no time for grief; there never is.”
Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden
Source: The Red Dice
Gena Showalter (1975) American writer
Source: Alice in Zombieland
“Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.”
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet
“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”
M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist
Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
Michael Leboeuf (1942) American business writer
Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor
T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Context: Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all: —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
“Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled.”
Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
“He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.”
Tamora Pierce In the Hand of the Goddess
Source: In the Hand of the Goddess
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke (1960)
Rilke's Letters
Context: What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.
“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
Stephen King (1947) American author
Variant: Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
“This time it is real — all must die, and where could mountaineer find a more glorious death!”
John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra
Reprinted in The Wild Muir ISBN 0-939666-75-8 page 38, and Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 234
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869
“All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hours, and the books of all Time.”
John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic
Source: Sesame and Lilies
“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.”
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
“Is not life a hundred times too short for us— to bore ourselves?”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil
Ist das Leben nicht hundert Mal zu kurz, sich in ihm— zu langweilen?
Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter VII, 227
