Quotes about Time

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
- Will Rogers  



All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that. 
 - Baltasar Gracian  



Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.
- John Randolph (1773 - 1833)


Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
- Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)


There is never enough time, unless you're serving it.
Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)


If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.
Maria Edgeworth, O Magazine, April 2004


Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)


Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.
Mason Cooley, O Magazine, April 2004 


Time does not change us.   It just unfolds us.
Max Frisch 


What very mysterious things days were. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There's quite a lot we don't know about them.
Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been, 2010


So little time and so much to do.
Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972)


A single day is enough to make us a little larger.
Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)


The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
Plutarch (46 AD - 120 AD)


These times of ours are series and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882), Public and Private Education, November 27, 1864


This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)




Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
- Jim Bishop

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. 
- Theophrastus (372 BC - 287 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, 
Lives of Eminent Philosophers



This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882), The American Scholar, August 31, 1837


The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'
- John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)


I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present. 
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), The Moon and Sixpence


Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. 
Rodin (1840 - 1917)


What may be done at any time will be done at no time.
Scottish Proverb

I wasted time and now doth time waste me.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Richard II, Act V, sc. 5



Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Sonnet LX


Nothing 'gainst Times scythe can make defence.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Sonnet XII


Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Othello, Act II, sc. 3


Ruin has taught me to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Sonnet LXIV



Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), The Rape of Lucrece 



The extreme parts of time extremely forms all causes to the purpose of his speed. 
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, sc. 2


The time is out of joint : O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act I, sc. 5


The whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Twelfth Night, Act V, sc. 1 


Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'd
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done. 
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Troilus and Cressida, Act III, sc. 3


Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arm outstretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Troilus and Cressida, Act III, sc. 3 


Time's glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time in aged things, To wake the morn of sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger till he render right, To ruinate proud buildings with thy hour And smear with dust their glittering golden towers.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), The Rape of Lucrece


Time's the king of men; he's both their parent, and he is their grave, and gives them what he will, not what they crave.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Pericles, Act II, sc. 3