Quotes about time
261 quotes from 169 people
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Four, Chapter VIIIEternity’s a terrible thought. I mean, where’s it all going to end?
Tom Stoppard1937–2025Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), p. 71Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.
Marcel Proust1871–1922Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: “Madame Swann at Home”
Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940 “War Situation”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Society and Solitude (1870), Works and DaysWrite it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Society and Solitude (1870), Works and Days
E. B. White1899–1985A review of The Wave of the Future by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Harpers Magazine (December 1940)We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech, Richmond, Virginia (20 September 1952)The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
Leo Tolstoy1828–1910War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869), Bk. X, ch. 16It is the future that creates his present.
All is an interminable chain of longing.
Robert Frost1874–1963In the Clearing (1962), “Escapist — Never”People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Volume iii, p. 274
