The great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect time.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Time is not a line, but a series of now-points.
—Taisen Deshimaru (1914–82) Japanese Buddhist Teacher
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
That we may live to see England once more possess a free Monarchy and a privileged and prosperous People, is my Prayer; that these great consequences can only be brought about by the energy and devotion of our Youth is my persuasion. We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Time turns the old days to derision, our loves into corpses or wives; and marriage and death and division make barren our lives.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English Poet, Novelist
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
The race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Imagine that I am riding a bicycle toward you. As I approach an intersection I nearly collide, so it seems to me, with a horsedrawn cart. I swerve and barely avoid being run over. Now think of the event again, and imagine that the cart and the bicycle are both traveling close to the speed of light. If you are standing down the road, the cart is traveling at right angles to your light of sight. You see me, by reflected sunlight, traveling toward you. Would not my speed be added to the speed of light so that my image would get to you considerably before the image of the cart? Should you not see me swerve before you see the cart arrive? Can the cart and I approach the intersection simultaneously from my point of view, but not from yours? Could I experience a near collision with the cart while you perhaps see me swerve around nothing and pedal cheerfully on toward the town of Vinci? These are curious and subtle questions. They challenge the obvious. There is a reason that no one thought of them before Einstein. From such elementary questions, Einstein produced a fundamental rethinking of the world, a revolution in physics.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
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 not.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
You can never plan the future by the past.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Make a good use of the present.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
It is reported that more than 90% of what we worry about never happens. That means that our negative worries have less than a 10% chance of being correct. If this is so, isn’t being positive more realistic than being negative? Think about your own life. I’ll wager that most of what you worry about never happens. So are you being realistic when you worry all the time? No!
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
Money is a lubricant. It lets you “slide” through life instead of having to “scrape” by. Money brings freedom—freedom to buy what you want , and freedom to do what you want with your time. Money allows you to enjoy the finer things in life as well as giving you the opportunity to help others have the necessities in life. Most of all, having money allows you not to have to spend your energy worrying about not having money.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
If you look back too much, you will soon be headed that way
—Unknown
Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.
—Richard Sapir (b.1936) American Novelist
The laboring man and the artificer knows what every hour of his time is worth, and parts not with it but for the full value: they are only noblemen and gentlemen, who should know best how to use it, that think it only fit to be cast away; and their not knowing how to set a true value upon this, is the true cause of the wrong estimate they make of all other things.
—Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609–74) English Statesman, Historian
A person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets your watch, and then sends you a bill for it.
—Unknown
When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Management works in the system; Leadership works on the system.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
The years like great black oxen tread the world,
And God, the herdsman goads them on behind,
And I am broken by their passing feet.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltiness of time.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
—Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American Entrepreneur, Businessperson
He lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived, but lost. God is better than his promise if he takes from him a long lease, and gives him a free hold of a better value.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
The good thing about being young is that you are not experienced enough to know you cannot possibly do the things you are doing.
—Indian Proverb
What is time?—The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries—these are but the arbitrary and outward signs—the measure of time, not time itself. Time is the life of the soul.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.
—Thomas Wolfe (1900–38) American Novelist
Time’s horses gallop down the lessening hill.
—Richard Le Gallienne (1866–1947) English Author, Poet
Start thinking about yourself as a lifetime student at a large university. Your curriculum is your total relationship with the world you live in, from the moment you’re born to the moment you die.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
The longest day soon comes to an end.
—Common Proverb
Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
—Jim Bishop (1907–87) American Journalist, Author
Don’t say you don’t have enough time.
You have exactly the same number of hours per day
that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur,
Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci,
Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
—H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (b.1940) American Self-Help Author
A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Time is like a handful of sand—the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.
—Unknown
If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.
—Arthur Eddington (1882–1944) English Astronomer
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 glides away and as we get older through the noiseless years; the days flee and are restrained by no reign.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future has not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Get into the habit of asking yourself if what you are doing can be handled by someone else.
—Unknown
The worst old age is that of the mind.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator