quotations about time
Time does not die; only people.
J. F. LAWTON
The Hunted
Every hour in itself, as it respects us in particular, is the only one we can call our own.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
attributed, Thoughts Moral and Divine
Is Time outside me, I started wondering in high school. When things began to go fast. Or is Time inside me. If OUTSIDE you have to keep pace with f***ing clocks & calendars. No slacking off. If INSIDE, you do what you want. Whatever. You create your own Time. Like breaking the hands off a clock like I did once so it's just the clock face there looking at you.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
Zombie
The end of time is the birthday of Eternity.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Oh, thou divinest healer Time
And thing sublime!
That thou should'st gladly life's lorn nest
Anew invest,
And set before the eyes of man
A deeper purpose, holier plan,
And gently bridge the abysmal span,
'Twixt earth and rest!
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Oh, Thou Inexorable Grief"
Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
lines written the night before his death
I can never understand why I should eat at one or sleep at eleven, if it is, as it often is, my one and my eleven and nobody else's. For, as between the clock and me alone, one and eleven and all other o'clocks are mine and I am not theirs. But I have known men and women living in hotels who would interrupt a sunset to go to dine, or wave away the stars in their courses to go to sleep, merely because the hour had struck.
ZONA GALE
"Miggy"
Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.
JAMES THURBER
The 13 Clocks
Make good use of Time ... reflect that yesterday cannot be recalled, tomorrow cannot be assured, today is only yours, which if you procrastinate you lose.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
The ancients painted time in the form of an old man with a large tuft of hair on his forehead, but bald behind, to teach us, that, if we catch him not as he comes, it will be impossible after he has passed by.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
We are the fools of Time and Terror: Days
Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.
LORD BYRON
Manfred
All substances the cunning chemist Time
Melts down into that liquor of my life.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Day's Ration
So little time we live in Time,
And we learn all so painfully,
That we may spare this hour's term
To practice for Eternity.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
"Bearded Oaks"
Time, ghost-like, glides by us invisible, unseen, amid the glare and turmoil of the day; but in the gloom and silence of the midnight hour he stands revealed, and with one hand points mockingly to the wasted, marred past, and with the other towards the future; he whispers, in the lonely hour, into our ears the startling, fateful word, "Eternity."
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays, vol. II
Time puts out all other flames
But the glory of his eyes;
His are all the sacred names,
His the solemn mysteries.
Crown him! In his darkest day,
He has heaven to give away!
CAROLINE SPENCER
"The Royal Name"
Normal people experience time as a flow, an infinite cascade of falling dominos, a chain of cause-and-effect events that neither leaps forward several moments nor suddenly reverses, but rather passes with the predictable click-click-click of now moments falling into the next with a steady cadence.
DEREK THOMPSON
"A Brief Economic History of Time", The Atlantic, December 21, 2016
Stealing a moment from Mr. Time
He rocks in his chair like a shiny dime
But it's all for show, all for show.
Wearing your name and a number or two
When the minute's up, so are you
But everybody knows, everybody knows.
THE ALAN PARSON PROJECT
"Mr. Time"
Pass on, ever on, O Time! ush'ring in
New joys, new aspirations, and new life.
WATIE W. SWANZY
"Time"
Time, that aged nurse.
JOHN KEATS
Endymion
Time, which despoils castles, enriches verses.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
"Averroes' Search"