Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,745 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Time
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“A junky runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junk time to start. A sick junkie has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have no net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a daemon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: OpenBSD mailing list (December 15, 2007)
“Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time. Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. However, knowing this, one must attend to medical practice not primarily to plausible theories, but to experience combined with reason. For a theory is a composite memory of things apprehended with sense perception.”
Hippocrates (460–370 BC) said by 370 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Precepts, Ch. 1, as translated by W. H. S. Jones (1923).
“Time, time, time, see what's become of me, While I looked around for my possibilities, I was so hard to please, But look around, the leaves are brown, And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.”
Paul Simon (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You were a precious pearl How I loved to see you shine, You were the perfect girl. And you were mine. For a time. For a time. Just for a time.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You think he’s a genius?” she said, raising her eyebrows. The high Vor twit?” “I don’t know him quite well enough, yet. But I suspect so, a part of the time.” “Can you be a genius part of the time?” “All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s a good time coming, boys! A good time coming. We may not live to see the day, But earth shall glisten in the ray Of the good time coming. Cannon-balls may aid the truth But thought’s a weapon stronger; We’ll win our battles by its aid, Wait a little longer.”
Charles Mackay (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't want a word-processor. I process my own words. Helpful people assure me that a word-processor would save me a great deal of time. But I don't want to save time. I want to write the best book I can, and I have whatever time it takes to make that attempt.”
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am a believer in unconscious cerebration. The brain is working all the time, though we do not know it. At night it follows up what we think in the daytime. When I have worked a long time on one thing, I make it a point to bring all the facts regarding it together before I retire; I have often been surprised at the results... We are thinking all the time; it is impossible not to think.”
Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?”
Richard Bach (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Girl, next time he wants to know What your problem is Next time he wants to know Where the anger comes from Just tell him this time the problem's his Tell him the anger just comes It just comes.”
Ani DiFranco (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…This is a period of relaxation for me, but there are still some weeds that need pulling. I kind of go with Thumper, you know, from Bambi. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” That was my philosophy for a long time as a young person. However, I lost Thumper’s guidance as I grew older…He returns from time to time.”
Joni Mitchell (born 1943) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On whether she pulled out all the “weeds in your soul” during her youth in “Joni Mitchell: 'I'm a fool for love. I make the same mistake over and over'” in The Guardian (2020 Oct 27)
“I remember the time you told me, you said "Love is touching souls," Surely you've touched mine, cause Part of you pours out of me In these lines from time to time.”
Joni Mitchell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are many who would take my time. I shun them. There are some who share my time. I am entertained by them. There are precious few who contribute to my time. I cherish them.”
Anton LaVey (1930–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground- a time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.”
Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Woman power to the fore, by R.S. Binuraj, The Hindu (1 July 2017)
“To spend time is to pass it in a specified manner. To waste time is to expend it thoughtlessly or carelessly. We all have time to spend or waste, and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time means a lot to me because, you see, I, too, am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing and simplifying. If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 10; Here Lee paraphrases a much older English proverb: If you care for life, don't waste your time; for time is what life is made of. (as quoted in Bordighera and the Western Riviera (1883) by Frederick Fitzroy Hamil…
“This weekend, as we celebrate , families across America will gather in backyards and front porches, fire up the barbeque, kick back with friends, and spend time with people they care about. That is as it should be. But I also hope that as you do so, you’ll take some time to reflect on what Memorial Day is all about; on why we set this day aside as a time of national remembrance.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's pretty hard to tell somebody who won 211 seats the first time out, having started way behind, and then 169 the next time out, that he can't do it a third time against Jean Chrétien, Preston Manning and Audrey McLaughlin. Give me a break.”
Brian Mulroney (1939–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music is like a drug; when you hear it, you have a vision. And that vision can change over time or remain the same. You know, that first time you’re in love and you hear a love song and every time you think about it you have that vision of your special someone. And then two years later, after you broke up, you’re at the bar. And you hear that song and you go, "Son of a bitch... I’ll have a Jaeger.”
Lewis Black (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's the time of turning and there's something stirring outside. It's the time of turning and the old world's falling. Nothing you can do can stop by the next emerging. Time of the turning and we'd better learn to say our goodbyes.”
Peter Gabriel (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All economic activity is carried out through time. Every individual economic process occupies a certain time, and all linkages between economic processes necessarily involve longer or shorter periods of time.”
Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Intertemporal Price Equilibrium and Movement in the Value of Money" (1928)
“Time! Time! Time! — we must not impugn the Scripture Chronology, but we must interpret it in accordance with whatever shall appear on fair enquiry to be the truth for there cannot be two truths. And really there is scope enough: for the lives of the Patriarchs may as reasonably be extended to 5000 or 50000 years apiece as the days of Creation to as many thousand millions of years.”
John Herschel (1792–1871) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Charles Lyell after being inspired by his Principles of Geology (1830-1833)
“I've probably been working on this [Pop Tart bit] for two years. [...] It's a long time to spend on something that means absolutely nothing. But that's what I do; that's what people want me to do, is spend a lot of time wastefully... so that then, I can then waste their time!”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If it's not going to be that serious, I don't want to do it. It's a personal taste. I don't like watching an actor have the same fucking hairdo from time period to time period, from character to character— I just think it's bullshit. It's a waste of money and a waste of my time as an audience member.”
Russell Crowe (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is a Government of to-morrow. ... It is all swagger and pose, and no action. Let it be done. No, he cannot do it, he is too busy doing other things. Russia must come first. No time to carry schemes for the unemployed, no time to deal with profiteering in food and in materials for building. ... Yet there was time for a Russian loan. Moscow first, and Camberwell afterwards.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Camberwell, London, on Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Government (27 October 1924), quoted in The Times (28 October 1924), p. 8
“Short of coming to their senses and abolishing the whole thing, we might expect that the rules for daylight saving time will remain the same for some time to come, but there is no guarantee. (We can only be glad there is no daylight loan time, or we would face decades of too much daylight, only to be faced with a few years of total darkness to make up for it.)”
Erik Naggum (1965–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“America, I'm gonna shoot straight with you, I think I've wasted your time. I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time. I apologize for that.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Consciousness must essentially cover an interval of time; for if it did not, we could gain no knowledge of time, and not merely no veracious cognition of it, but no conception whatever. We are therefore, forced to say that we are immediately conscious through an infinitesimal interval of time.”
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time with its continuity logically involves some other kind of continuity than its own. Time, as the universal form of change, cannot exist unless there is something to undergo change, and to undergo a change continuous in time, there must be a continuity of changeable qualities.”
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everybody who says the same words is the same person if the spectra are the same only they happen differently in time, you dig? But the time is arbitrary. You pick your zero point anywhere you want, that way you can shuffle each person’s time line sideways till they all coincide.”
Thomas Pynchon (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My time is up. I believe … that my time to be with my spiritual father and his sender has come. And your time to go through serious trial has come.”
Louis Farrakhan (born 1933) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Farrakhan in Speech: 'My Time Is Up' " by Jeff Karoub ABC News (26 February 2007)
“The good man. He is still enhancer, renouncer. In the time of detachment, in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil, in the time of oral grave grave legalities of hate - all real walks our prime registered reproach and seal. Our successful moral. The good man.”
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something which you have to be all the time. Which isn't easy.”
Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Pleasure of Honesty (1917), trans. William Murray
“All teachers—in every teaching situation from kindergarten to university settings—need time away from teaching at some point in their career. The amount of time is relative. Certainly, the many unemployed teachers, especially at the college level, could all work some of the time if teachers everywhere, in every educational system, were allowed to take unpaid leaves whenever they desired.”
Bell hooks (1952–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“33 years ago I pleaded guilty, and I served time at the prison for common law crimes at Chino, not in a VIP prison. That period was to have covered the totality of my sentence. By the time I left prison, the judge had changed his mind and claimed that the time served at Chino did not fulfil the entire sentence, and it is this reversal that justified my leaving the United States.”
Roman Polański (born 1933) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time and time again have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been and passed away and been forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man.”
H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all of the people all the time... Dogs, on the other hand, with them all you need to do is flick your wrist and they run off looking for some stupid tennis ball. (Famous cat quotes)”
Darby Conley (born 1970) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun, page 114 and daily strip for December 10, 2001
“We be informed by our judges that we at no time stand so highly in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, wherein we as head and you as members are conjoined and knit together into one body politic, so as whatsoever offence or injury (during that time) is offered to the meanest member of the House is to be judged as done against our person and the whole Court of Parliament.”
Henry VIII of England (1491–1547) first seen 1542 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to Parliament on parliamentary privilege (March/April 1542), as quoted in Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland Volume III (1808), by Raphael Holinshed, p. 824
“Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait. Wo-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?”
Robert Hunter (1941–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.”
Octavio Paz (1914–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the time to remember 'Cause it will not last forever. These are the days to hold on to 'Cause we won't, although we'll want to. This is the time, But time is gonna change. You've given me the best of you But now I need the rest of you.”
Billy Joel (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're flirting with time baby Flirting with time, but maybe, Time baby, is catching up with you.”
Tom Petty (1950–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A leader should have a quick intelligence. Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late. Sometimes time is so important that it becomes the principal consideration.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is so painful about that time is that nothing was disastrous. It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then — we went on dancing.”
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A writer doesn’t only need the time when he’s actually writing—he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people.”
Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm — we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish — ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.”
John Ruskin (1819–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Arise, begin this very moment, and say, “Now is the time to do: now is the time to fight, now is the proper time for amendment.”
Thomas à Kempis (1379–1471) said by 1471 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.”
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) first seen 1747 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 14 April 1747