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Alan Lightman Quotes

Total quotes: 11
“For it is only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. Without memory, each night is the first night, each morning is the first morning, each kiss and touch are the first.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: Memories, Memory Dulls Physical Passion, There Is A First For Everything, If You Could Experience Your Firsts All Over Again
“Who would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: Living Two Lives, Denying The Future, Waiting To Live Life
“Suppose that time is not a quantity but a quality, like the luminescence of the night above the trees just when a rising moon has touched the treeline. Time exists, but it cannot be measured.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: Time Exists But It Cannot Be Measured, Time As Quality Not Quantity
“The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: To Be Stuck In Time, A World Where Time Stops, The Many Worlds Of Einstein, Theories Of Time
“In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room dark but prepared. We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: Waiting To Live Life, A Life Of Fixed Future, Infinite Options That We Cannot Change, Living A Life We Have No Say In, Being A Spectator Of Your Life
“Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but is noble to live life and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: To Be Stuck In Time, A World Where Time Stops, The Many Worlds Of Einstein, Theories Of Time
“It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: A World That Favors Impulse, Impulsive World, Impulsivity Is Authentic And Sincere
“Stars radiate energy into space, thus depleting their finite supply of nuclear energy. Eventually that precious stellar commodity will be spent, at which point the stars will burn out and go dark. As will our sun, in about 5 billion years. In something like 1,000 billion years, all of the stars in the sky will have gone cold. At that point, the night sky will be completely dark.”
— Alan Lightman, When the Heavens Stopped Being Perfect
Tagged: Stars, Cosmos, When Will The Sun Burn Out?, How The Sun Will Burn Out, The Stars Are Finite Objects, Finite Energy
“Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.”
— Alan Lightman, The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew
“And at the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go. The loved one will never take his arms from where they are now, will never give back the bracelet of memories, will never journey afar from his lover, will never place himself in danger of self-sacrifice, will never fail to show his love, will never become jealous, will never fall in love with someone else, will never lose the passion of this instant of time.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: Where Time Stands Still, If A Relationship Could Not Progress Or Decay
“In fact, this is a world without future. In this world, time is a line that terminates at the present, both in reality and in the mind. In this world, no person can imagine the future. Imagining the future is no more possible than seeing colors beyond violet: the senses cannot conceive what may lie past the visible end of the spectrum. In a world without future, each parting of friends is death. In a world without future, each loneliness is final. In a world without future, each laugh is the last laugh. In a world without a future, beyond the present lies nothingness, and people cling to the present as if hanging from a cliff.”
— Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams
Tagged: In A World With No Future, A World The Lacks The Concept Of Progression, Every Goodbye Is Death, Beyond The Present Lies Nothingness
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