Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Source identified
The moments were numbered; the strife was finished; the vision was closed.
Read & copy the quotation
“The moments were numbered; the strife was finished; the vision was closed.”

Thomas De Quincey

Source
The English Mail-Coach
Date
1849
Local voice
Authorial / signed preface voice · Thomas De Quincey (first-person essay narrator)
Meaning

Meaning of “The moments were numbered; the strife was finished;…”

The compressed sentence captures the instant in which a terrifying encounter becomes irreversible memory, emphasizing how abruptly danger can pass into recollection.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The English Mail-Coach, represented by Project Gutenberg #6359 in the volume The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc. The sentence follows the near-collision / dream-fugue sequence and is highly literary first-person prose, not an objective report of measured time.

Primary / edition source ↗

Speaker context

Why the local voice matters

The English Mail-Coach, dream-fugue / near-collision sequence. The sentence belongs to De Quincey’s highly literary first-person recollection, not a factual timing claim.

Customize your imageTen designs · Square or portrait · Preview and share
Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

DeepFearLifeMindShortThinking Quotes About Reasoning, Reflection & JudgmentThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionTimeAdversityDreams
Related quotations

Continue through nearby ideas

Source identified
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
Image design Midnight
Read & copy

“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”

William Shakespeare · Hamlet · c. 1600
Voice: Fictional character · Hamlet
Meaning & context

The line condenses an existential dilemma into a question about endurance, action, fear, and the unknown consequences of death.

Source details

Act 3, Scene 1; Hamlet weighs existence against suffering and uncertainty.

Source identified
The thinker has to decide, to choose; and there is always a risk.
Image design Botanical Sage
Read & copy

“The thinker has to decide, to choose; and there is always a risk.”

John Dewey · How We Think · 1910
Meaning & context

Choosing among plausible interpretations necessarily involves uncertainty, so sound thinking requires a cautious selection that remains open to confirmation or correction by later events.

Source details

How We Think (1910), Chapter VIII, “Judgment: The Interpretation of Facts,” section 1, printed page 106, Project Gutenberg #37423. Dewey says the thinker must choose among candidate meanings for a perplexing situation and therefore accepts risk; the prudent thinker selects warily and remains answerable to later confirmation or frustration. This is part of Dewey’s historical educational/logical account of reflective judgment, not a modern decision-science finding.

Source identified
The future is yet to come
Image design Lavender
Read & copy

“The future is yet to come”

William Hazlitt · On the Past and Future · 1821
Meaning & context

The brief phrase anchors Hazlitt’s argument that the future does not possess greater reality merely because it has not happened yet; he compares its status with the already completed past.

Source details

Table-Talk, Volume I, Essay III, “On the Past and Future,” Project Gutenberg #3020. “The future is yet to come” occurs in Hazlitt’s comparison of the already-existing past with the not-yet-existing future: the full sentence continues that the future “has never been anything.” The retained short excerpt is therefore part of a philosophical contrast, not a prediction, forecasting rule or scientific proposition.

Source identified
All things, then, seek the good.
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy

“All things, then, seek the good.”

Boethius · The Consolation of Philosophy · c. 524
Meaning & context

Boethius frames action as movement toward some perceived good, making the nature of genuine goodness central to understanding desire, purpose, and happiness.

Source details

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book III, Chapter XI, H. R. James translation (Elliot Stock, 1897), printed page 149 in Project Gutenberg #14328. Lady Philosophy reaches ‘All things, then, seek the good’ after arguing that things naturally seek continued existence and unity, and that unity and goodness are the same. This remains late-antique metaphysical/philosophical argument mediated by translation, not an empirical description of every human motive or modern behavioral science.

Source identified
All men by nature desire to know.
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy

“All men by nature desire to know.”

Aristotle · Metaphysics · c. 350 BCE
Meaning & context

Aristotle treats the desire for knowledge as a basic human tendency, giving curiosity a foundational place in the movement from perception toward understanding.

Source details

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I, Chapter I, W. D. Ross translation (1908), validated Wikisource scan leaf 21. 'All men by nature desire to know' opens the work before the discussion of sensation, memory, experience, art and knowledge. This remains ancient philosophy mediated by translation, not a modern empirical finding about cognition.

Source identified
What am I? A part of the infinite.
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy

“What am I? A part of the infinite.”

Leo Tolstoy · My Confession · 1882
Meaning & context

Tolstoy frames the self as finite yet participating in something larger, shifting the question of meaning away from isolated individual duration toward a relation with the infinite.

Source details

My Confession, Leo Wiener translation; the question appears in Tolstoy’s investigation of how finite human life might be related to an infinite reality.