quotations about time
Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but "lies asleep."
HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
An Abridgement of the Secret Doctrine
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"
For though time may seem to drag slowly on
Before you will know it, time will be gone.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"The Voice of the Clock"
Days, months, years fly away, and irrecoverably sink in the abyss of time.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
attributed, Thoughts Moral and Divine
Well, ultimately nothing lasts. Everything is temporal, but some things last longer than others.
WALTER BARGEN
Riverfront Times, September 29, 2009
Time's flying wheel leaves little trace behind.
ISAAC MCLELLAN
"Musings"
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
Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but it is noble to live life, and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Einstein's Dreams
I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppled masonry, and time one livid final flame.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
Your children's losing battle with time seems even sadder than your own.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit at Rest
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Golden Legend
Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular -- an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Sexing the Cherry
There is nothing fatherly about time and what it does to us, either.
DEAN KOONTZ
Forever Odd
It seems to be not the vast things, but the immense multitude of little, like insects in a forest, which eat up the fruit of time.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
How Time doth lash us with sharp pains,
Set loose our teeth, snatch wisps of hair, dim eyes --
And finally bend our backs toward earth
To find the fittest place for burial.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
"Of Time", Cloudrifts at Twilight
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
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
We are all burning in time, but each is consumed
at his own speed.
JACK GILBERT
"Burning (Andante Non Troppo)"
Time, that aged nurse,
Rocked me to patience.
JOHN KEATS
Endymion
Time is a master of ceremonies who always ends up putting us in our rightful place, we advance, stop and retreat according to his orders, our mistake lies in imagining that we can catch him out.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
The Cave