Thomas Love Peacock Quotes

Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.

Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away.

Continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time, that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time. But thou, in what a brief space of time is thy existence? And why art thou not content to pass through this short time in an orderly way?

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

Time goes, you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays, we go.

Time stays, we go.

We can change everything but we can't stop time.

The brief span of our poor unhappy life to its final hour Is hastening on; and while we drink and call for gay wreaths, Perfumes, and young girls, old age creeps upon us, unperceived.

Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.

Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute...All the elements of life are in constant flight from us, with darkness and clarity intermingled, the vision and the eclipse; we look and hasten, reaching out our hands to clutch; every happening is a bend in the road...and suddenly we have grown old. We have a sense of shock and gathering darkness; ahead is a black doorway; the life that bore us is a flagging horse, and a veiled stranger is waiting in the shadows to unharness us.

All human beings are like travelers floating down the eternal river of time, embarking at a certain point and disembarking again at another point in order to make room for others waiting below the river to come aboard.

No effect of work can be eternal.

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

Time marks us while we are marking time.

Our time on Earth is so random.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

It ends all things: birds, trees, flowers, mountain tops, and business; it grinds stones to sand, and as terrible as it is, and it's the most beautiful thing we have in our lives - time.

You can't halt time.

Mankind is a dream of a shadow.

If we one day cease to exist, what will be remarkable is that we were ever here at all.

We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.

We are an episode between two oblivions.