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Quotes about time

261 quotes from 169 people

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Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
Joseph Addison1672–1719Cato, A Tragedy (1713)
- Life & Death
Clocks slay time. … Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
William Faulkner1897–1962The Sound and the Fury (1929), “June Second, 1910”In context
The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.
Walter Benjamin1892–1940Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), V
- History
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
Zora Neale Hurston1891–1960Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Ch. 3, p. 21
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Dylan Thomas1914–1953Fern Hill (1946), St. 6
- Youth
Time’s a strange fellow;
more he gives than takes
(and he takes all)
E. E. Cummings1894–196295 poems (1958), 78
Defer not till tomorrow to be wise,
Tomorrow’s sun to thee may never rise.
William Congreve1670–1729“Letter to Cobham”, line 61
- Wisdom
Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.
John Updike1932–2009A Month of Sundays (1975)
Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
Warren Buffettborn 1930Statement of January 1991, as quoted in Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett (2007) by Andrew Kilpatrick
The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.
Frank Lloyd Wright1867–1959The Living City (1958)
- Hope
I love my past. I love my present. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had, and I’m not sad because I have it no longer.
Colette1873–1954La Fin de Chéri (The Last of Cheri) (1926) (tr. Roger Senhouse)
It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves.
Thornton Wilder1897–1975The Eighth Day (1967)
Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.
Hermann Hesse1877–1962Steppenwolf (1927), p. 97In context
Those who adhere to the past won’t be able to cope with the future.
Willy Brandt1913–1992Speech at the extraordinary SPD party convention (18 November 1971)
- Change