TIME QUOTES XII

quotations about time

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"


Time, the human dimension, which makes us everything we are.

MARTIN AMIS

Time's Arrow

Tags: Martin Amis


Time cannot be spurred on like a horse.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: Kobo Abe


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


He who toys with Time, trifles with a frozen serpent, which afterwards turns upon the hand that indulged the sport, and inflicts a deadly wound.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


Time will discover everything to posterity; it is a babbler, and speaks even when no question is put.

EURIPIDES

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Euripides


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


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 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


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 begets more than fiction can create.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims

Tags: Edward Counsel


The avalanche of time sweeps everything before it. Every individual instant hurtles into oblivion, drowning out the obliteration of the instant immediately preceding it, and then it too disappears under the onslaught of the next and the next and the next. When the avalanche has shuddered past for a long enough time, the perception of the past evolves. Distant events grow beyond mere history and take on the weight of legend.

DAVID GERROLD

Under the Eye of God

Tags: David Gerrold


There was a time when time did not yet exist.

EMIL CIORAN

The Trouble with Being Born

Tags: Emil Cioran


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

HORACE

Odes

Tags: Horace


No preacher is listened to but time; which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have tried in vain to put into our heads.

JONATHAN SWIFT

"Thoughts on Various Subjects", The Works of Jonathan Swift

Tags: Jonathan Swift


Time ... thou ceaseless lackey to eternity.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Rape of Lucrece

Tags: William Shakespeare


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

JOHN LUBBOCK

The Use of Life

Tags: John Lubbock


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

JOHN UPDIKE

Rabbit at Rest

Tags: John Updike


I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppled masonry, and time one livid final flame.

JAMES JOYCE

Ulysses

Tags: James Joyce


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