Temporal affairs

“ As, in this life, consciousness is interrupted by sleep and by accidents, so the temporal processes, in whatever variety they have, which fulfil in their wholeness and in their relations to the eternal order the life of an individual, may be, for all that I can see, in any one of a large number of relations to us and to one another, — contemporaneous, continuously successive, or discontinuously successive, with temporal gaps of any magnitude. ”

“ But, in view of the correspondence between the universal time of the world-order, as we conceive it, and the time of our internal experience, as we observe it, the temporal sequences must be viewed as having in the real world, and for the Absolute, the same twofold character that our temporal experiences have for ourselves. Present, in what we may call the inclusive sense of the term, is any portion of real time with all its included events, in so far as there is any reason to view it as a whole, and as known in this wholeness by a single experience. ”

“ And this process is forced on it, both by its temporal form, and again by the continuity of its content, which transcends what is given. Time, like space, has most evidently proved not to be real, but to be a contradictory appearance. ”

“ It is impossible, on taking a survey of the history of the world, not to recognize a great predisposing [Pg 17] cause, which appoints the time and circumstances of every event which is to produce any considerable change in the state of human affairs. ”

“ The single event may thus live on in its influence along the line of all the ages, assuming new shapes, or if clothing itself in the drapery of new events, ever marching onward and upward in the continually growing affairs of time. ”

“ In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment ”

“ Time rolled on, and the majestic order of nature, uninterrupted in its harmonious course, finely contrasted the rapid vicissitudes of human events, and the countless changes in human institutions! In the short space of twenty years, the mighty had fallen, and the lowly were elevated ”

“ She looked on a neat little world of Time: Time ran upon steel tracks, Time carried mites of human life rigidly down a tiny way. The trains, the houses, the streets, the wisps of sunny cloud through the roof’s gap ... all was a pasty toy-world: make-believe: the world of Time and Space. She gazed on it in passionate condescension within her sooty workroom, hands paying, brow in search paying.... ”

“ For how could 'time' be measured in minutes or hours by a woman wearing a blindfold, shut away in the dark, and waiting a verdict that could cause the future to slough away into chill gulfs? And how could 'time' have any meaning when the stars faded out of the sky and a sunset gun boomed farewell to the joys of the physical world? ”

“ It is the same when, from the summit of an age, we gaze backward over the plain of time. The myriad of petty happenings are lost to sight, and we see only the striking events, the critical epochs, the mighty crises through which the world has passed. ”

“ Passing rapidly the minor incidents of the varying fortunes of the stupendous struggle which had been transferred for the time from the Old World to the New, we reach the hour which was to mark an epoch in history. ”

“ We wish at present rather to look back into past time and see what consequences we may legitimately infer. Such intervals of time as we are familiar with in ordinary life, or even in ordinary history, are for our present purpose quite inappreciable. ”

“ Looking only to the Future, you forget our ample Past that has made us what we are. Yet our Past is here and now, beside us at this very moment. Into the hollow cups of weeks and months, of years and centuries, Time pours its flood beneath our eyes. Time is our schoolroom.⁠ ⁠... ”

“ Thus it is that when we stretch our view through immense vistas of time past, or when we look forward through immeasurable ages of time to come, the alteration in the length of the day will assume the most startling proportions, and involve the most momentous consequences. ”

“ Therefore, there is another defining time frame in which they are invited to flourish. In all of these times, every change that happens is unique, but the Source of all these changes remains unaltered and unchanging. ”

“ That instant, or time-point, is the strict present. What we call, loosely, the present, is an empirical portion of the course of time, containing at least a minimum of consciousness, in which the instant of change is the present time-point.... ”

“ No epoch in the world’s history can be set in comparison with ours in so far as it has been the witness, in the course of a few decades, of almost daily progress and improvement in connection with industry, culture, and the whole field of human knowledge. ”

“ And different presents, unless they are successive, cannot be real. So the different time-series, which are real, must be able to exist independently of the distinction between past, present, and future. ”

“ Can any Sovereign, or Holy Alliance of Sovereigns, bid Time stand still; even in thought, shake themselves free of Time? Our whole terrestrial being is based on Time, and built of Time; it is wholly a Movement, a Time-impulse ”

“ Nevertheless, when we look back on history we do distinguish periods in the lapse of time that are not merely arbitrary ones, we note the early growth of the ideas which are to form the new order of things, we note their development into the transitional period, and finally the new epoch is revealed to us bearing in its full development, unseen as yet, the seeds of the newer order still which shall transform it in its turn into something else. ”

“ For the second that they waited the earth, too, seemed to wait, a solemn, awe-filled moment of incalculable change, a tense moment, as if the unknown, mysterious forces of nature were gathering themselves together for some mighty, unprecedented effort. ”

“ In our consciousness, however, the now of experience does mean just such an actual, brief, but still finite, interval or period of time, within which and during which events succeed one after another. ”

“ Of these the present time is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain. ”

“ No two moments in time are identical; though the background remain the same, the details change; the unexpected rises on every side. In this bewildering confusion, a guide is needed to seek, accept, refuse and select ”

“ History has always existed, but not always in its historical form. The temporalization of humanity, brought about through the mediation of a society, amounts to a humanization of time. The unconscious movement of time becomes manifest and true within historical consciousness. ”

“ Do whatever you will, Time will fly and not remain still. Whatever condition you may be in, Time will fly and not stop its career. Way-farer! are you being roughly handled by the storm and rain? Are the clouds roaring loud and deep over your head? ”

“ Every operation requires a time fixed for its commencement, a period and place for its execution, The points of inherent importance in the conduct of a campaign,—time, place, secrecy, code of signals, agents, and method. ”

“ As time, it has been said, can only be recognised by change, which involves a succession of events, our idea of time is entirely governed by the unit we adopt. The palæontologists, or students of ancient life, form their notion of the lapse of time, not from the lives of individuals, or the duration of empires ”

“ In like manner every active epoch harbours within itself the ideals and the ways of its immediate predecessors. An epoch is a complex fact; and in many of its departments these inherited modes of thought and custom survive, unshaken and dominant. ”

“ We are now witnessing one of the most remarkable, one of the most suggestive, signs of the time—a time which is, I verily believe, teeming with social mange—a time, as I have said above, of the most stupendous importance in the history of mankind. We read constantly, in the paper and everywhere, fears, prophecies, bogies of approaching revolution. ”

“ WHY ask to know what date, what clime?
⁠There dwelt our own humanity,
Power-worshippers from earliest time,
Feet-kissers of triumphant crime,
⁠Crushers of helpless misery,
Crushing down Justice, honouring wrong,
If that be feeble, this be strong. ”

“ This general time of human nondevelopment also has a complementary aspect — a consumable form of time based on the present mode of production and presenting itself in everyday life as a pseudocyclical time. ”

“ There'll never be anything more than periods of twelve hours, until you come back: just from dawn to dark, and then from dark to dawn, over and over again. Each period must be fought through as it comes, with no thought about the others. ”

“ It is perfectly clear to every man who has any vision of the immediate future, who can forecast any part of it from the indications of the present, that we are just upon the threshold of a time when the systematic life of this country will be sustained, or at least supplemented, at every point by governmental activity. ”

“ Every moment of the future being dependent upon and involved in the present moment, sooner or later in the course of time there would come a moment similar in every detail to a moment that had already existed, thus guaranteeing a similar series of moments till it should recur, and so on. ”

“ The notion of one objective and 'evenly flowing' time, cut into numbered instants, applies itself as a common measure to all the steps and phases, no matter how many, into which we cut the processes of nature. ”

“ If there be room for a choice, the sooner a circumstance be introduced, the better. Circumstances are proper for that coolness of mind, with which a period as well as a work is commenced. In the progress, the mind warms, and has a greater relish for matters of importance. When a circumstance is placed at the beginning or near the beginning of the period, the transition from it to the principal subject is agreeable: it is like ascending or mounting upward. ”

“ People are perturbed (or so we are told) because the century's getting old. Time's rushing by. There's an alarm clock set to buzz at eternity's gate, Midnight 1900. In probing the malaise that hit Europe circa 1881, psychologists would have us believe the world grew despondent. ”

“ There is a long period of strain, the climax of which is reached when the period of examination arrives, during which the student's mind has to hold in solution the details of knowledge on many subjects. ”

“ For in real life—and this is very much of a true history—time passes imperceptibly when there are no special events to mark its progress. Seasons succeed each other, leaving little record behind them. ”

“ The progressive dawn of day, the flow of the tide, the lapse of time, the changes of the seasons—these are carried on by slow and imperceptible degrees, yet their progress and issue none can mistake or resist. ”

“ Times change, however, and we change with them. While the changes may be slow and almost imperceptible to the observer, they are sure, and finally become evident by the accumulation of event after event. ”

“ The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. ”

“ I do not need to explain how—civilization (that is, the social fact of the increase of life) multiplying our tasks, rendering our moments more and more precious, and obliging us to keep a perpetual and detailed record of our whole life—the calendar has become to all one of the most necessary things. ”

“ Then, if it worked, we'd be able to return, but on a different time-line—because, obviously, on our own line nothing like this doubling-back had already happened. Changing the past changes the future; you know the theory. ”