Old Retired Guy Blog
August 15, 2009
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TimeYesterday, August 14, was the anniversary of my father's birth. I didn't realize until my sister told me that he would have been 100 years old this year. We all thought he would live to be 100, but, unfortunately, he only made it to 83. Of course, my mother was much less fortunate, having lost her battle with breast cancer at the age of 59. Events like this always make me think of time and how it moves inexorably forward whether we're happy or sad or good or bad. The lyrics of Steve Miler's song Fly Like an Eagle usually pop into my head: "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin', into the future." Sometimes they're joined by other sayings such as "Time and tide wait for no man." or "Time heals all wounds." Of course, there's also "Time wounds all heels." Instead of trying to wax philosophical about time I thought I would let some famous people speak their minds on the subject. Here are some quotations that Google dug up for me: Andy Warhol: They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. Annie Dillard: How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. Benjamin Franklin: Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of. The Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8):
Brian Tracy: There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing. C. S. Lewis: The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. (played by Patrick Stewart, from the film "Star Trek: Generations") Colette: Time spent with cats is never wasted. Douglas Adams: Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. Emily Dickinson: To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. Eudora Welty: Events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation. Henry David Thoreau: The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. Horace Mann: Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. Jane Welsh Carlyle: Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother. Jesse Jackson: Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things. Kenneth Patton: By labor we can find food and water, but all of our labor will not find for us another hour. Mark Twain: Time and tide wait for no man. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water-ballast we turn it around: Man waits not for time nor tide. Mary Parrish: Love vanquishes time. To lovers, a moment can be eternity, eternity can be the tick of a clock. Paul Bowles: ... we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more; perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless. Ralph Waldo Emerson: The years teach much which the days never know. Rumi: Come out of the circle of time And into the circle of love. Salman Rushdie: Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems -- but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems incredible. Seneca: Whatever begins, also ends. Thomas Hardy: Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. Thomas Paine: Time makes more converts than reason. Thomas Paine: If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. W. Somerset Maugham: It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it. Will Rogers: Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Happy Birthday, Dad. I wish I'd been able to spend more time with you.
End of 'Time' Entry |
