Nature of time

Explore 16 quotes about Nature of time

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century beings it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

Thomas Mann

The Magic Mountain

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Topic

Nature of time

Author

Thomas Mann

Source

The Magic Mountain

Medium

Novel

Language

German

Time

1924 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Mann, Thomas. Der Zauberberg [The Magic Mountain]. S. Fischer Verlag, 1924, ch. 5.

Current Citation

Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain. Everyman's Library, 2005, ch. 5.

Time is flying never to return.

Virgil

Georgics

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Topic

Nature of time

Author

Virgil

Source

Georgics

Medium

Poem

Language

Latin

Time

29 BC 20s BC 1st century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Virgil. Georgica [Georgics]. c. 29 BCE, bk. 3.

Current Citation

Virgil. "The Georgics." The Eclogues and The Georgics, translated by C. Day Lewis. Oxford University Press, 2009, bk. 3.

Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.

Alice Walker

The Color Purple

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Topic

Nature of time Time

Author

Alice Walker

Source

The Color Purple

Medium

Novel

Genre

Epistolary novel

Language

English

Time

1982 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

Time is relative, okay? It can stretch and it can squeeze, but...it can't run backwards. Just can't. The only thing that can move across dimensions, like time, is gravity.

Interstellar

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Topic

Nature of time Time

Speaker

Brand

Actor

Anne Hathaway

Source

Interstellar

Medium

Film

Genre

Science fiction (film) Epic (film) Science fiction Epic

Language

English

Time

2014 2010s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Interstellar. Directed by Christopher Nolan, Legendary Pictures/Syncopy/Lynda Obst Productions, 2014.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

Carl Sagan

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Topic

Ephemeral nature of life Nature of time

Author

Carl Sagan

Source

Cosmos

Genre

Scientific literature

Language

English

Time

1980 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. Random House, 1980, ch. 2.

Let anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.

William James

The Principles of Psychology

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Topic

Nature of time The present Mindfulness

Author

William James

Source

The Principles of Psychology

Genre

Psychological literature

Language

English

Time

1890 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

James, William. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890, ch. 15.

We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain—not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

C.S. Lewis

The Screwtape Letters

On people and their relationship to time.

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Topic

The future Nature of time Time The human condition

Author

C.S. Lewis

Source

The Screwtape Letters

Medium

Novel

Genre

Religious literature

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. Geoffrey Bles, 1942, no. 25.

I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half.

The Jerk

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Topic

Nature of time Passage of time Time

Speaker

Navin Johnson

Actor

Steve Martin

Source

The Jerk

Medium

Film

Genre

Comedy (film) Comedy

Statement Type

Joke

Language

English

Time

1979 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Jerk. Directed by Carl Reiner, Aspen Film Society, 1979.

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

Ray Cummings

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Topic

Nature of time Time

Speaker

The Big Business Man

Author

Ray Cummings

Language

English

Time

1921 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Cummings, Ray. "The Girl in the Golden Atom." All-Story Weekly, Mar. 1919.

Current Citation

Cummings, Ray. The Girl in the Golden Atom. University of Nebraska Press, 2005, ch. 5.

Even such is time that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!

Sir Walter Raleigh

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of time Relentlessness of time Time

Author

Sir Walter Raleigh

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1618 1610s 17th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Raleigh, Walter. Even Such is Time. London, c. 1618, I. 1.

Current Citation

Raleigh, Walter. "Even Such is Time." Great Short Poems. Dover Publications, 2000, I. 1.

We live in time—it holds us and molds us—but I've never felt I understood it very well. And I'm not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing—until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.

Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending

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Topic

Nature of time Time

Author

Julian Barnes

Source

The Sense of an Ending

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

2011 2010s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Jonathan Cape/Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, ch. 1.

Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

Thomas Mann

The Magic Mountain

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of time Time

Author

Thomas Mann

Source

The Magic Mountain

Medium

Novel

Language

German

Time

1924 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Mann, Thomas. Der Zauberberg [The Magic Mountain]. S. Fischer Verlag, 1924, ch. 7.

Current Citation

Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain. Everyman's Library, 2005, ch. 7.

I shall use the phrase "time's arrow" to express this one way property of time which has no analogue in space.

Arthur S. Eddington

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Topic

Nature of time

Author

Arthur S. Eddington

Source

The Nature of the Physical World

Genre

Scientific literature

Language

English

Time

1928 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eddington, Arthur. "The Nature Of The Physical World." Gifford lecture. January – March 1927, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Psalm 90:4

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Topic

God and time Nature of time

Source

Psalms The Bible

Medium

Scripture

Genre

Religious literature

Language

Hebrew

Time

450 BC 450s BC 5th century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Holy Bible: The King James Version. 1611. (Psalm 90:4).

The distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent.

Albert Einstein

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of time Time

Author

Albert Einstein

Source

Letters of Albert Einstein

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1955 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Einstein, Albert. Quoted in Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology, by Max Jammer. Princeton University Press, 1999. Originally from Letter to Michaelangelo Besso, 21 Mar. 1955.

Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.

William Wordsworth

To a Butterfly (I've Watched You Now a Full Half-Hour)

More information about this quote

Topic

Childhood Nature of time Passage of time

Author

William Wordsworth

Source

To a Butterfly (I've Watched You Now a Full Half-Hour)

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1807 1800s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wordsworth, William. "To a Butterfly." Poems, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1807, st. 2.

Current Citation

Wordsworth, William. "To a Butterfly ('I've watch you')." William Wordsworth: The Major Works: including The Prelude, edited by Stephen Gill. Oxford University Press, 2008.