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Who really said it

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind

Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804–1864 · American novelist & short-story writer
Verified Free to reuse

Genuinely Hawthorne. The exact line is spoken by the character Donatello in Hawthorne’s novel The Marble Faun (1860) — and Hawthorne’s own narrator immediately calls the remark “trite,” a wink the inspirational-poster versions always drop.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind” Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun (1860)

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Provenance

The source

Work
The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni
Published
1860 (Boston: Ticknor and Fields)
Author
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
Spoken by
Donatello, to the sculptor Kenyon, at the tower of Monte Beni

“I may have known such a life, when I was younger,” answered Donatello. “I am not a boy now. Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”

The sculptor could not but smile at the triteness of the remark, which, nevertheless, had a kind of originality as coming from Donatello.

Hawthorne gives the line to the simple, sorrow-changed Donatello — and has the narrator flag it as “trite” even as it lands. The aphorism is real Hawthorne; the earnest inspirational framing is not how the book treats it.

The Marble Faun, full text (Project Gutenberg, Vol. II)

How we traced it

Public domain

The Marble Faun was first published in 1860, well before the 1931 threshold, so the text — including this line — is in the public domain in the United States.

Fact-check

A rare genuine one — with a catch

Hawthorne’s name is a notorious magnet for feel-good quotes he never wrote. This one, unusually, is his. The distortion here isn’t the author — it’s the tone.

Nathaniel Hawthorne genuine

The words are really Hawthorne’s, from The Marble Faun (1860). What’s usually lost is that he puts them in the mouth of the simple Donatello and has the narrator call the remark “trite” — see the chapter text.

Verdict: genuinely Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun (1860) — verified word-for-word against the primary text.

Context

The scene behind the line

In the novel, Kenyon imagines Donatello living an idyllic, Arcadian life of figs and sunlit grapes. Donatello — changed by a crime and its guilt — answers gravely that boyhood is behind him: “Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”

The line works precisely because of who says it. Hawthorne frames it as a homely truth a simple soul has “thought out from his own experience,” and the narrator’s smile at its “triteness” is part of the point. Stripped onto a poster, it reads as polished wisdom; in the book it’s tender, ironic, and a little sad.

“I am not a boy now. Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Time Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Marble Faun, Vol. II (full text)gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg edition containing the chapter where Donatello speaks the line.
The Marble Faun, Ch. 24 (Eldritch Press)ibiblio.org

Independent full-text edition of the chapter, used to confirm the wording verbatim.
Nathaniel Hawthorne quotesbritannica.com

Encyclopaedia Britannica’s curated Hawthorne quotations, crediting the line to him.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Sourced/misattributed quotation index for Hawthorne (this line is not yet catalogued there).
The Marble Faun (overview)britannica.com

Background on the 1860 novel, its characters Donatello and Kenyon, and its Italian setting.

The true author

About Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804–1864 · American novelist & short-story writer

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a central figure of the American Romance tradition, author of The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851). The Marble Faun (1860), written after years in Italy, was his last completed novel; in it the man-child Donatello is transformed by guilt and sorrow — the context in which this line about time’s lingering shadow is spoken.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860), spoken by Donatello in the chapter at the tower of Monte Beni.

MLA (9th ed.)

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni. Ticknor and Fields, 1860.

APA (7th ed.)

Hawthorne, N. (1860). The marble faun; or, The romance of Monte Beni. Ticknor and Fields.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/time-flies-over-us-but-leaves-its-shadow-behind

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