Mists Of Time Quotes & Sayings

My son, again you worry me. From time to time you worry me, so regularly it should calm me. I remember once, when you were little, we saw a fire together in a big hotel. The flames and the water and the smoke, the wailing and the shouting and the madly flashing lights, all these saved me from lots of talk on what life is. And we stood in silence. I ask myself where my father hid his fear, perhaps in a closed closet or some other place beyond the reach of children, perhaps deep in his heart. But now again you worry me. I'm always looking for you, this time among the mists of the Upper Galilee. I am a mist father. And the child is no more, for he is already grown. — Yehuda Amichai

They were people whose lives were slow, who did not see themselves growing old, or falling sick, or dying, but who disappeared little by little in their own time, turning into memories, mists from other days, until they were absorbed into oblivion. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I developed in thousands of changes, and it always seemed to me that all of my former self disappeared with each new change, that it was lost in the mists of time that had passed and were now insignificant. But then, again and again, unexpectedly, I would find traces of everything that had been, like uncovered artifacts, like my own fossil strata; although they were old and unsightly, they became dear and beautiful. That rediscovered, recovered part of me, which was more than a memory, was beautified and returned from unreachable distances by time, which joined me with it. Thus, it had a twofold existence, as a part of my present personality, and as a memory. As the present, and as a beginning. — Mesa Selimovic

On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus he who has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the venerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the mind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure, the thousand changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so distant as seemingly to reach the mists of time; and yet four lives of ordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the form of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the limits of the republic ... Thus, what seems venerable by an accumulation of changes is reduced to familiarity when we come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time. — James Fenimore Cooper

Winder's mind felt even fuzzier than it had done over the past few years, but he was certain about cake. He'd been eating cake, and now there wasn't any. Through the mists he saw it, apparently close but, when he tried to reach it, a long way away.
A certain realization dawned on him.
"Oh," he said.
YES, said Death.
"Not even time to finish my cake?"
NO. THERE IS NO MORE TIME, EVEN FOR CAKE. FOR YOU, THE CAKE IS OVER. YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE. — Terry Pratchett

facts about the pyramid that he sometimes forgot some of them until reminded. This was one of them. Instead of the typical four flat sides, the Great Pyramid had eight, but it had been forgotten in the mists of time until an aerial photo had been taken at just the right time. It was now known that at dawn and sunset on the spring and fall equinoxes, a shadow appears in such a way as to divide the pyramid in half, and the concavity that divides each side on the center line is revealed. — J.C. Ryan

His shadow splayed out huge before him, and his mind gleamed with ancient wars and winged beings, a mountain of melted demon bones and the city on the far side of it--a city that had vanished in the mists of time. — Laini Taylor

It's too easy, you see, to get trapped in the past. The past is very seductive. People always talk about the mists of time, you know, but really it's the present that's in a mist, uncertain. The past is quite clear, and warm, and comforting. That's why people often get stuck there. — Susanna Kearsley

O gods, rob not the earth of the dim hush that hangs round all Your temples, bereave not all the world of old romance, take not the glamour from the moonlight nor tear the wonder out of the white mists in every land; for, O ye gods of the childhood of the world, when You have left the earth You shall have taken the mystery from the sea and all its glory from antiquity, and You shall have wrenched our hope from the dim future. There shall be no strange cities at night time half understood, nor songs in the twilight, and the whole of the wonder shall have died with last year's flowers in little gardens or hill-slopes leaning south; for with the gods must go the enchantment of the plains and all the magic of dark woods, and something shall be lacking from the quiet of early dawn. — Lord Dunsany

I saw Chungking for the first time more than 40 years ago - a city of hills and mists, of grays and lavenders, two rivers shaping it to a point and the cliff rising above me like a challenge. — Theodore White

She should have looked ridiculous, standing there wet and bedraggled in her silly underwear, but she looked magnificent. Like some kind of mythical goddess rising from the mists of time.
Statuesque, utterly feminine. Breathtaking. — Sarah Mayberry

What appears to be definite and precise does not belong to any acceptable reality. It is only the experiences, the queer previsions, the fleeting premonitions, that are real. Vague and insubstantial though they may appear to be, compared with anything else in the mists and shifting lights of Time theory, they loom up like mountains of iron ore. — J.B. Priestley

It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. But when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy's song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself. — Susanna Clarke

Tell me you doona want this. Tell me that ye didna feel this storm brewing between us since the very first day we met. That a part of ye didna know that this was an inevitability. I knew from the first time I saw ye that it was my destiny to claim ye here in the mists. And ye must take me, Mena ... all of me. Make demands of yer own. Lay claim to the pleasure I'm willing to offer ye. — Kerrigan Byrne

So give me back that time again, When I was still 'becoming', [185] When words gushed like a fountain In new, and endless flowing, Then for me mists veiled the world, In every bud the wonder glowed, A thousand flowers I unfurled, [190] That every valley, richly, showed. I had nothing, yet enough: Joy in illusion, thirst for truth. Give every passion, free to move, The deepest bliss, filled with pain, [195] The force of hate, the power of love, Oh, give me back my youth again! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What a trio we are: wolf, dragon and ... " Ronan bit back the word. Shifter. He sat straighter in the saddle, raising one hand in farewell as his mount broke through the last of the boundary mists. "May the gods favor us this time, my friend. Pray Mairi Sinclair is the one. — Maeve Greyson

At least with magical portals and mystic byways, you had a reasonably good chance that economics and time constraints confined the journey to just a few minutes of scrambling around through geographically unsound temporal mists. In the small hours of the morning, the air cold and damp, and the sun not yet even a glow on the eastern horizon, it was more of a challenge to get back using nothing more than the urban travel infrastructure. — Kate Griffin

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before
and thus was the Empire forged.
... In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. — Douglas Adams

Below these words was the garden's name in English: EVENING MISTS. I felt I was about to enter a place that existed only in the overlapping of air and water, light and time. — Tan Twan Eng

It's up to us to re-enchant this planet Earth We are the elves and giants we are the shining ones daughters of the Moon and sons of the Sun We are the shapeshifters we are the mysterious light shrouded in mists at the dawn of our time and it's up to us to re-enchant this living planet Earth Up to us to midwife at our own rebirth up to us to send our dead along their ancient pathways to the future up to us to re-enchant this living planet Earth It's up to us to break the spell that steals the colors from the world and leaves it lifeless it was our spell we can break it It's up to us the break the spell that steals the music from the Wind and Rain it is our spell we can break it We will dance the magic dance and our bodies will remember we will sing the magic songs and together we'll remember how to live together how to love each other how to ride the eagle how to call the deer Home - Will Ashe Bacon — Elizabeth Roberts

As she read on, her surroundings gradually faded, and soon there lay about her only the mists of dream; the purple, star-strown mists beyond Time, where only gods and dreamers walk. — H.P. Lovecraft

I have heard the people dwelling in my land, hall-rulers, say that they had often seen two such mighty stalkers of the marches, spirits of otherwhere, haunting the moors. One of them, as they could know full well, was like unto a woman; the other miscreated being, in the image of man wandered in exile (save that he was larger than any man), whom in the olden time the people named Grendel. They knew not if he ever had a father among the spirits of darkness. They dwell in a hidden land amid wolf-haunted slopes and savage fen-paths, teh wind-swept cliffs where the mountain-stream falleth, shrouded in the mists of the headlands, its flood flowing underground. — Chauncey Brewster Tinker

Rincewind agreed moodily. He tried to explain that magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality; this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy required several hours of systematic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears. — Terry Pratchett

I believe that marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman ... I have had occasion in my life to defend marriage, to stand up for marriage, to believe in the hard work and challenge of marriage. So I [am] committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that exists between a man and a woman, going back into the mists of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principal role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

His expression is inscrutable. His eyes look strange with their pulsing pupils. "You're not like other girls. You're special."
Intoxicating warmth crawls over my cheeks. I'm glad at this confession. Glad that I'm as unique to him as he is to me. Back home, I only ever felt safe, protected, and revered. Even with Cassian, I never felt like he liked me for me, but rather for what I brought the pride.
Every moment with Will, I feel at risk, exposed. Danger hands close, as tangible as the heavy mists I've left behind. And I can't get enough of it. Of him. I crave his nearness still. Like a drug needed to survive, to get by each day. An addiction. A powerful, consuming thing.
"I've tried to deny it," he continues, "but it's there, staring me in the face every time I see you. If you were like other girls . . ." He laughs hoarsely. "If you were like other girls I wouldn't even be here. — Sophie Jordan

Thank you again," Wax said to her. "I still can't believe you snuck a gun into the party."
"It's only appropriate," Steris said, "that you would make a smuggler out of me."
"Just as you try to make a gentleman out of me."
"You're already a gentleman," Steris said.
Wax looked down at her as she held to him while trying to stare in every direction at once. He suddenly found something burning in him, like a metal. A protectiveness for this woman in his arms, so full of logic and yet so full of wonder at the same time. And a powerful affection.
So he let himself kiss her. She was surprised by it, but melted into the embrace. They started to drift sideways and arc downward as he lost his balance on his anchors, but he held on to the kiss, letting them slip back down into the churning mists. — Brandon Sanderson

Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. — George R R Martin

There is the subtler music, the clear light
Where time burns back about th'eternal embers.
We are not shut from the thousand heavens:
Lo, there are many gods whom we have seen,
Folk of unearthly fashion, places splendid,
Bulwarks of beryl and of chrysophrase.
Sapphire Benacus, in thy mists and thee
Nature herself's turned metaphysical,
Who can look at that blue and not believe? — Ezra Pound

White America has seen to it that Black history has been suppressed in schools and in American history books. The bravery of hundreds of our ancestors who took part in slave rebellions has been lost in the mists of time, since plantation owners did their best to prevent any written accounts of uprisings. — Huey Newton

By the time the traditionally male lexicographers become interested in looking at fashion words, their origins are lost in the mists of time. — Erin McKean

Space travelers in the gray mists of time? An inadmissible question to academic scientists. Anyone who asks questions like that ought to see a psychiatrist. — Erich Von Daniken

There has always been the wind.
Since our planet began to turn, there has been the wind. This ball of dirt and fire and water started to spin. The air stirred. And Earth's time began.
But the beginnings of the wind are lost in the mists of time. The wind blew before the Appian Way wended through Rome. It blew before the Parthenon crowned Athens. Before pyramids sprang up in Egypt.
Before the Mayans. Before the Incas.
Before Man. — Kaye George

But love wasn't sensible, love wasn't reasonable, love wasn't appropriate, it was more than that, so for Christ's sake, why not drag up marriage from the mists of time and impose its form on love again? Why not use the big words again? Why not solemnly swear that that we will love each other forever? — Karl Ove Knausgard

To find anything comparable with our forthcoming ventures into space, we must go back far beyond Columbus, far beyond Odysseus-far, indeed, beyond the first ape-man. We must contemplate the moment, now irrevocably lost in the mists of time, when the ancestor off all of us came crawling out of the sea. — Arthur C. Clarke

Suddenly she felt strong and happy. She was not afraid of the darkness or the fog and she knew with a singing in her heart that she would never fear them again. No matter what mists might curl around her in the future, she knew her refuge. She started briskly up the street toward home and the blocks seemed very long. Far, far too long. She caught up her skirts to her knees and began to run lightly. But this time she was not running from fear. She was running because Rhett's arms were at the end of the street. — Margaret Mitchell

Tracing the beginnings of the interwoven stories of science can be arbitrary, as beginnings are so often lost in the mists of time. — Elizabeth Blackburn

Don't make a sound!" she whispered, giving me a little shake. "I need your help."
Damn! She had given the female password - spoken those magic words that stretched back through the mists of time to a bond made in some primordial swamp. — Alan Bradley

It is true that as World War II recedes into the mists of time, almost all big-hearted progressives or liberals (or whatever self-congratulatory term they apply to themselves) denounce Nazism and fascism with the utmost ardor. Yet when these odious movements were on the rise, many among the British elite cautioned prudence in dealing with them; and some actually admired them, including members of the royal family and, of course, clerics in the Anglican Church. — R. Emmett Tyrrell