Time

"There are some moments, the hues of which are like those on the wing of a butterfly — a touch brushes them away."

"The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph."

"The doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize that at every moment of every year in our lives Donne's question "What if this present were the world's last night?" is equally relevant."

"The devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."

"The Moment is coming. The Moment is me. You have to decide."

"It strikes me that self, not just my self, but all self, the phenomenon of self, is perhaps one field, one consciousness – perhaps there is only one ‘I’, perhaps our brains, our selves, our entire identity is little more than a label on a waveband. We are only us when we are here. At this particular moment in space and time, this particular locus, the overall awareness of the entire continuum happens to believe it is Alan Moore. Over there – [he points to another table in the pizza restaurant] – it happens to believe it is something else. I get the sense that if you can pull back from this particular locus, this web-site if you like, then you could be the whole net. All of us could be. That there is only one awareness here, that is trying out different patterns. We are going to have to come to some resolution about a lot of things in the next twenty years time, our notions of time, space, identity."

"I am the angel of reality, Seen for a moment standing in the door."

"Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments."

"I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

"All things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

"I beg my mirror image for a moment with my soul."

"A portion of life, every moment gets torn out of me hurting, and flees away."

"What moments divine, what rapture serene."

"I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had. At the moment, it is a dream. But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old. At this hour, it’s a wish. But we have it within our power to make it a reality. If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive."

"Beauty is momentary in the mind — The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives."

"Where Do I begin and end? And where, As I strum the thing, do I pick up That which momentously declares Itself not to be I and yet Must be. It could be nothing else."

"We shall forget by day, except The moments when we choose to play The imagined pine, the imagined jay."

"The poem refreshes life so that we share, For a moment, the first idea . . . It satisfies Belief in an immaculate beginningAnd sends us, winged by an unconscious will, To an immaculate end."

"As a man and woman meet and love forthwith. Perhaps there are moments of awakening, Extreme, fortuitous, personal, in whichWe more than awaken, sit on the edge of sleep, As on an elevation, and behold The academies like structures in a mist."

""I exist" does not follow from "there is a thought now." The fact that a thought occurs at a given moment does not entail that any other thought has occurred at any other moment, still less that there has occurred a series of thoughts sufficient to constitute a single self. As Hume conclusively showed, no one event intrinsically points to any other. We infer the existence of events which we are not actually observing, with the help of general principle. But these principles must be obtained inductively. By mere deduction from what is immediately given we cannot advance a single step beyond. And, consequently, any attempt to base a deductive system on propositions which describe what is immediately given is bound to be a failure."

"There was no pain when I awoke, No pain at all. Rest, like a goad, Spurred my eyes open — and light broke Upon them like a million swords: And she was there. There are no words. Heaven is for a moment's span. And ever."

"What one needs to do at every moment of one's life is to put an end to the old world and to begin a new world."

"The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the Æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetick, which scarce stands one moment."

"The Now, that indivisible point which studs the length of infinite line Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all, the puny all thou callest thine."

"This moment in time (She said) It doesn't belong to you (She said) It belongs to me [...] I put this moment here. I put this moment Over here"

"No one's ever needed to do it, as much as you do. This is your moment. Believe in yourself."

"If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret."

"Of course many people will have much to say. We should listen. But we won't be deceived by words such as Indispensable, Unique, and Great. Someone else indispensable and unique and great can always be found at a moment's notice."

"I had an experience... I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real! I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever... A vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny, and insignificant and how … rare, and precious we all are! A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not — that none of us — are alone! … I wish I could share that. I wish, that everyone, if only for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and hope. But … that continues to be my wish."

"He was by himself always. Remote, detached, aloof. Seeing past everyone and everything — that is, until all at once something clicked and he momentarily rephased, reentered their world briefly."

"With God, every moment is the moment of beginning again."

"Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?"

"I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker..."

"But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future."

"The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, For the pattern is new in every moment And every moment is a new and shocking Valuation of all we have been."

"For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts."

"Every moment is a fresh beginning."

"Had we never lov'd sae kindly, Had we never lov'd sae blindly, Never met - or never parted, We had ne'er been broken-hearted."

"Never give in — never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

"Captain: Though related to a peer, I can hand, reef, and steer, And ship a selvagee; I am never known to quail At the fury of a gale, And I'm never, never sick at sea! Chorus: What, never? Captain: No, never! Chorus: What, never? Captain: Hardly ever!"

"To get mixed up with a man who says never May be big trouble, but then I just could be the woman to take you And make you never say never again."

"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!"

"Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore'."

"No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!"

"And silence their mourning With vows of returning But never intending to visit them more. No never, no never, intending to visit them more."

"Thou shalt hear the 'Never, never', whispered by the phantom years."

"Her uncle drove a taxi which he had purchased on the 'never never' system. You pay $80 down and more than you can afford for the rest of your life."

"I'll love you till the bluebells forget to bloom; I'll love you till the clover has lost its perfume. I'll love you till the poets run out of rhyme, Until the twelfth of never and that's a long, long time."

"The Moment of Death; or, The Never, Never Land"