TIME QUOTES XII

quotations about time

Go to the man on the street and ask whether time has a direction, whether the future is different from the past, and whether time doesn't march on toward the future. That's the natural view. The more interesting view is how the physicists manage to convince themselves that time doesn't have a direction.

TIM MAUDLIN

"A Defense of the Reality of Time", Quanta Magazine, May 16, 2017


Time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment.

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Tags: Gabriel García Márquez


The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Conquest of Happiness


Time is but a phantom dagger
That motion lifts to slay itself.

MAXWELL BODENHEIM

"Advice To a Pool"

Tags: Maxwell Bodenheim


Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.

JOAN DIDION

The Year of Magical Thinking

Tags: Joan Didion


While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.

ALAN LIGHTMAN

Einstein's Dreams


Time loves a new lay; and the dirge he is playing
Will change for you soon to a livelier strain.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"You Will Forget Me"


When things don't please you, the best medicine is to swallow a little tincture of time.

KEN ALSTAD

Savvy Sayin's

Tags: Ken Alstad


Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence -- neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish -- it is an imponderably valuable gift.

MAYA ANGELOU

Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Tags: Maya Angelou


I've always been keenly aware of the passing of time. I've always thought that I was old. Even when I was twelve, I thought it was awful to be thirty. I felt that something was lost. At the same time, I was aware of what I could gain, and certain periods of my life have taught me a great deal. But, in spite of everything, I've always been haunted by the passing of time and by the fact that death keeps closing in on us.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

interview, The Paris Review, spring-summer 1965

Tags: Simone de Beauvoir


But to say there was a time when time was not, is as absurd as to say there was a man when there was no man.

ST. AUGUSTINE

The City of God

Tags: St. Augustine


Your children's losing battle with time seems even sadder than your own.

JOHN UPDIKE

Rabbit at Rest

Tags: John Updike


You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.

T. S. ELIOT

"The Dry Salvages", Four Quartets

Tags: T. S. Eliot


Time has ghosts. That's what time is: the ghost of every instant passed, haunting the potential of every moment to come.

TIM LEBBON

Fears Unnamed

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The years like birds of passage go
To that eternal clime, the past;
And May's immortal lot is cast
Upon their flight o'er all below,
Like sunlight on a field of snow,
Or some sweet rose-leaf on the blast.

HENRY ABBEY

"May Dreams"

Tags: Henry Abbey


Time ... antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents

Tags: Sir Thomas Browne


As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in tomorrow.

HORACE

Odes

Tags: Horace


How do you "spend" your time? Because make no mistake, time is a currency. There is a cost to how you spend it. The cost might be a trade-off, like choosing one activity over another, but don't fool yourself into thinking that this is a free exchange.

CARL RICHARDS

"Free Time? Not Likely, for Time Is Anything but Free", New York Times, January 18, 2017


Time is a trust, and for every minute of it you will have to account.

JOHN LUBBOCK

The Use of Life

Tags: John Lubbock


Time commences with mutable things; if they perish, it perishes with them.

SABINE BARING-GOULD

The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity

Tags: Sabine Baring-Gould