Time

"The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience."

"“They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive. Patience and time are my warriors, my champions,” thought Kutúzov. He knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge."

"You'll never know How I watched you from the shadows as a child You'll never know How it feels to be the one who's left behind You'll never know the days, the nights The tears, the tears I've cried But now my time has come And time, time is not on your side [...] How I watched you from the shadows as a child You'll never know How it feels to get so close And be denied It's a gold and honey trap I've got for you tonight Revenge, it's a kiss, this time I won't miss Now I've got you in my sight With a Golden eye"

"When your legs get weaker time starts running faster."

"You've got to get yourself together You've got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it. Don't say that later will be better now, You're stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it. [...] It's just a moment, this time will pass."

"Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus."

"Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque."

"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit."

"Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis."

"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever. When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes.""

"All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber."

"What is time? It is a serpent which eats its tail [...]."

"Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away."

"Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, act in the living present! Heart within, and God o'erhead!"

"Time has two aspects. For civil and some scientific purposes, we want to know the time of day so that we can order events in sequence. In much scientific work, we want to know how long an event lasts. Thus, any time standard must be able to answer two questions: “When did it happen?” and “What is its duration?”"

"Killing time has never been one of my defter abilities, due, I believe, to my rather keen awareness that it is actually time that kills us."

"Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing."

"If I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence; I become absent minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of time any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should we not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time Dimension; or even to turn about and travel the other way?"

"There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it."

"Over a large part of the civilized world it was believed and taught that the world had been created suddenly in 4004 B.C., though authorities differed as to whether this had occurred in the spring or autumn of that year. ... Such ideas have long since been abandoned by religious teachers, and it is universally recognized that the universe in which we live has to all appearances existed for an enormous period of time and possibly for endless time. Of course there may be deception in these appearances, as a room may be made to seem endless by putting mirrors facing each other at either end."

"Time is not a primary category, and the asymmetry of time between past and future is not a primary category in the description of nature. It is secondary and derived."

"The point is that in the past the time-span of important change was considerably longer than that of a single human life. Thus mankind was trained to adapt itself to fixed conditions. To-day the time-span is considerably shorter than that of human life, and accordingly our training must prepare individuals to face a novelty of conditions."

"... throughout mathematics, in one sense, transition does not enter. The interconnections are displayed in their timeless eternity. It is true that the notions of time, and of approach, and of approximation, occur in mathematical discourse. But as used in the science, the timefulness of time and the motion of approach are abstracted from."

"A word of the faith that never balks, Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all."

"It must have required enormous effort for man to overcome his natural tendency to live like the animals in a continual present. Moreover, the development of rational thought actually seems to have impeded man's appreciation for the significance of time. ...Belief that the ultimate reality is timeless is deeply rooted in human thinking, and the origin of rational investigation of the world was the search for permanent factors that lie behind the ever-changing pattern of events."

"Throughout Iranian thought there was a tendency to dualism... two distinct forms or aspects of time were recognized: indivisible time, that is the eternal 'now', and time that is divisible into successive parts. The former represented the creative aspect of time and was fundamental. It was called Zurvan akarana, or infinite time, and was the progenitor of the universe and of the spirits of good and evil. Associated with the universe was the other form of time called Zurvan daregho-chvadhata, that is the time of long dominion, or finite time. This was the time that brought decay and death. It dominated the world of man and was represented by the celestial firmament. ...The whole reason for the existence of finite time appears to have been to bring about that conflict of good and evil which eventually leads to the triumph of the former. ...Finite time begins and ends with the rule of Ohrmazd. At a given moment finite time came into existence out of infinite time. It goes through a cycle of changes until it finally returns to its original state and then merges into infinite time."

"The idea that time may be an active factor in causation has the mathematical significance that ' t ' (for the system in question) must appear explicitly in the formulation of the law. ...Such law may claim to express the fact of historic, irreversible duration."

"The question of the reversibility of natural processes provides the key to a great intellectual struggle which is now behind the complexities of philosophic and scientific thought. The issue can be formulated thus: Is there a real temporal process in nature? Is the passage of irreversible time a necessary element in any view of the structure of nature? Or, alternatively, is the subjective experience of time a mere illusion of the mind which cannot be given objective expression? These are not metaphysical questions that can still be neglected with impunity. For just as Einstein made his advance by analysing conceptions such as simultaneity, which had been thought to be adequately understood for the purposes of experimental science, so the next development of physical theory will probably be made by carrying on the analysis of time from the point at which Einstein left it."

"Time is a waste of money."

"'Tis in Philosophy, and that is made up of nothing else; but receives addition from every days experiment. True indeed, for Divinity we have an infallible rule that do's plainly inform us of all necessary Truths; and therefore the Primitive Times are of greater Authority, because they were nearer to those holy Men who were the Pen-Men of Scripture. But now for Philosophy, there is no such reason: What ever the School Men may talk; yet Aristotles works are not necessarily true, and he himself hath by sufficient Arguments proved himself to be liable unto errour. Now in this case, if we should speak properly, Antiquity do's consist in the old age of the World, not in the youth of it. In such Learning as may be increased by fresh experiments and new discoveries: 'Tis we are the Fathers, and of more Authority than former Ages; because we have the advantage of more time than they had, and Truth (we say) is the Daughter of Time."

"Time is the inexorable process of doing computation."

"Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today."

"Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future. Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past."

"The future: a dark, desolate world. A world of war, suffering, loss on both sides. Mutants, and the humans who dared to help them, fighting an enemy we cannot defeat. Are we destined down this path, destined to destroy ourselves like so many species before us? Or can we evolve fast enough to change ourselves... change our fate? Is the future truly set? ... The past: a new and uncertain world. A world of endless possibilities and infinite outcomes. Countless choices define our fate: each choice, each moment, a moment in the ripple of time. Enough ripple, and you change the tide... for the future is never truly set."

"“I can talk about time.” Mr. Rabbit took the watch from his waistcoat pocket again, and regarded its slow, jewelled face curiously. “So fragile, and yet the only unstoppable thing in this or any universe. Time.” He tapped the gently curved glass with his paw. “One second is such a tiny measure in the grand scheme of things. Yet one second can change so much. It is the difference between late and not late, between yesterday and today, and between here and gone.”"

"Nought treads so silent as the foot of Time; Hence we mistake our autumn for our prime."

"The bell strikes one. We take no note of time But from its loss: to give it then a tongue Is wise in man."

"Procrastination is the thief of time: Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene."

"Time is eternity; Pregnant with all eternity can give; Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile. Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth A power ethereal, only not adorn'd."

"Time wasted is existence, used is life."

"We push time from us, and we wish him back; * * * * * * Life we think long and short; death seek and shun."

"In leaves, more durable than leaves of brass, Writes our whole history."

"We see time's furrows on another's brow, * * * * * How few themselves in that just mirror see!"

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

"Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this."

"For the vision is yet for its appointed time, And it is rushing toward its end, and it will not lie. Even if it should delay, keep in expectation of it! For it will without fail come true. It will not be late!"

"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle."

"From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

"The signs of the times."

"Brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away."