Why kill time when one can employ it.
—French Proverb
Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
That man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
The moment is freedom.—I couldn’t live by a rigid schedule. I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) American Martial Artist, Actor, Philosopher
Every minute of life carries with it its miraculous value, and its face of eternal youth.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
The organized person … makes the most of his time and goes to his bed for the night perfectly relaxed for rest and renewal.
—George Matthew Adams (1878–1962) American Columnist, Journalist
Time, whose tooth gnaws away at everything else, is powerless against truth.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) American Martial Artist, Actor, Philosopher
I cannot afford to waste my time making money.
—Louis Agassiz (1807–73) Swiss-American Naturalist, Glaciologist
Time is that which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Sociologist, Political Theorist
The key to setting priorities, the order in which you must accomplish things, is to ask yourself, “What is my payoff in doing this activity? How does this fit in with my long-term objectives?”
—Unknown
If you want to kill time, try working it to death.
—Sam Levenson (1911–80) American Humorist, Writer, TV Personality, Journalist
Time is a great healer, but a poor beautician.
—Lucille S. Harper American Freelance Writer
The geometry of landscape and situation seems to create its own systems of time, the sense of a dynamic element which is cinematizing the events of the canvas, translating a posture or ceremony into dynamic terms. The greatest movie of the 20th century is the Mona Lisa, just as the greatest novel is Gray’s Anatomy.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
Misspending a man’s time is a kind of self-homicide.
—E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881–1959) British Politician, Political leader
Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don’t move; today is today, always is today.
—Octavio Paz (1914–98) Mexican Poet, Diplomat
Lost time is never found again.
—Common Proverb
Time in its aging course teaches all things.
—Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Greek Poet
Each day, each hour, an entire life.
—Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881–1958) Spanish Lyric Poet
Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.
—Richard Sapir (b.1936) American Novelist
When men are not regretting that life is so short, they are doing something to kill time.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit.
—Octavio Paz (1914–98) Mexican Poet, Diplomat
All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer
To do two things at once is to do neither.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
In order to be utterly happy, the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
Be intent on the perfection of the present day.
—William Law (1686–1761) English Clergyman
He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is a like a ray of life which darts itself through all his occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
An inch of time cannot be bought with an inch of gold.
—Chinese Proverb
Time is the author of authors.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet live very little.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Make a good use of the present.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
An hour of pain is as long as a day of pleasure.
—Unknown
For tribal man space was the uncontrollable mystery. For technological man it is time that occupies the same role.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow – the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Time and I against any two.
—Spanish Proverb
Time is the arbitrary division of eternity.
—Unknown
Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last.
—Abraham Cowley (1618–67) English Poet, Essayist
Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.
—Arnold Glasow (1905–98) American Businessman
Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Time is the rider that breaks youth.
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don’t be afraid to follow it.
—Joseph Campbell (1904–87) American Mythologist, Writer, Lecturer
Realize life as an end in itself. Functioning is all there is.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
You love what you find time to do.
—Anonymous
Time is too slow for those who wait
too swift for those who fear
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love, time is eternity.
Hours fly, flowers die,
new days, new ways pass by,
Love stays.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance.
—Leo Buscaglia (1924–98) American Motivational Speaker
Management works in the system; Leadership works on the system.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Simplicity of character is no hindrance to subtlety of intellect.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Political Leader, Writer, Editor, Journalist