Our allotted time is the passing of a shadow.
—Book of Wisdom, c. 100 BCQuotes
A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
—Jane Austen, 1814They say, “We only have the life of this world. We die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” Yet, not true knowledge have they of this—only belief.
—The Qur’an, c. 620Thou art not to learn the humors and tricks of that old bald cheater, time.
—Ben Jonson, 1601I’ve been on a calendar, but never on time.
—Marilyn Monroe, 1962Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
—Cormac McCarthy, 1992If both what is before and what is after are in this same “now,” things which happened ten thousand years ago would be simultaneous with what has happened today, and nothing would be before or after anything else.
—Aristotle, c. 330 BCThe past is always tense and the future, perfect.
—Zadie Smith, 2000Do not lessen the time of following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit.
—Ptahhotep, c. 2350 BCFor everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCMy stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse.
—John Quincy Adams, 1844Time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions.
—James Joyce, 1922Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them.
—Charles Lamb, 1810