Quotes about time

Time and Space … It is not nature which imposes them upon us, it is we who impose them upon nature because we find them convenient.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction, at which we arrive by means of the changes of things...

A man who, at the age of five-and-twenty, knows nothing and wishes to learn everything, is bound to make the best use of his time. Not knowing at what point destiny or death might arrest my zeal, I desired, in any case, to get an idea of everything, in order to discover the special bent of my natural abilities, and also to judge for myself what was worthy of cultivation.

Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it. All the plans I make fly right back upon myself; when I would spit, I even spit into my own face.

We spread the time as we can, but in the end the world takes it all back.

Time is a face on the water.

There's a quote from The Poetics of Space that sticks with me. Professor Clarke wrote it on the board the last day of class.

It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality. -Gaston Bachelard

I've been thinking about this more lately, especially as I look back on my life. As much as we want to, we can't control time or keep it from moving forward. Maybe there's something beautiful about that, living with the uncertainty of what's to come. You never know what possibilities will be born out of it. But some things will always be certain. Like the sun rising in the morning. Or the leaves falling in the autumn and the cherry blossoms returning in the spring. That he and I will always be connected. And who knows? Maybe we'll see each other again in twenty-nine years, when the comet passes once more, sending streaks of light across the sky.

I hope he still remembers me then.

The most important thing was that time had passed, pouring thousands of soothing seconds across the island. People need time to deal with the now before it runs away and becomes the then. And what they need most of all is nothing much happening.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

It's funny when you feel as if you don't want anything more in your life except to sleep, or else to lie without moving. That's when you can hear time sliding past you, like water running. (Part two, 1st section)

I was young then, and much more courteous to older people — and to everyone else, for that matter, as I look back on it — than I should have been. Also, I had not yet found out about time; I was still under the illusion that I had plenty of time — time for this, time for that, time for everything, time to waste.