quotations about time
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/t/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37
The Fellowship of the Ring
Time cannot be spurred on like a horse.
KOBO ABE
The Woman in the Dunes
For though time may seem to drag slowly on
Before you will know it, time will be gone.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"The Voice of the Clock"
Time seemed wormholed and faulted, honeycombed in mazes that crossed and recrossed.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
I've always been keenly aware of the passing of time. I've always thought that I was old. Even when I was twelve, I thought it was awful to be thirty. I felt that something was lost. At the same time, I was aware of what I could gain, and certain periods of my life have taught me a great deal. But, in spite of everything, I've always been haunted by the passing of time and by the fact that death keeps closing in on us.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
interview, The Paris Review, spring-summer 1965
Time is a trust, and for every minute of it you will have to account.
JOHN LUBBOCK
The Use of Life
We are all burning in time, but each is consumed
at his own speed.
JACK GILBERT
"Burning (Andante Non Troppo)"
And now, Lord, these things are passed by, and time hath assuaged my wound.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Golden Legend
Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but it is noble to live life, and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Einstein's Dreams
Time ... antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents
Time gives his hour-glass
Its due reversal.
Their hour is gone.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
"Consolation"
I think we are what Time may make us--lords
Of wealth and land, or wagemen held at hire;
Turning the years, we gain our toil's desire,
Or lose, inopportune, its high rewards.
KENNETH RAND
"To the Time-God"
It seems to be not the vast things, but the immense multitude of little, like insects in a forest, which eat up the fruit of time.
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
Once I lived in time as a fish in water, breathing it, drinking it, sustained by it. Now I kill time and time kills me.
J. M. COETZEE
In the Heart of the Country
As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in tomorrow.
HORACE
Odes
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Troilus and Cressida
Nothing is more precious than time, and those who misspend it are the greatest of all prodigals.
THEOPHRASTUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it, no small deduction from the life of man.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
How do you "spend" your time? Because make no mistake, time is a currency. There is a cost to how you spend it. The cost might be a trade-off, like choosing one activity over another, but don't fool yourself into thinking that this is a free exchange.
CARL RICHARDS
"Free Time? Not Likely, for Time Is Anything but Free", New York Times, January 18, 2017