In time history must become a fairy tale—it will become again what it was in the beginning.
—Novalis, c. 1798Quotes
Thou art not to learn the humors and tricks of that old bald cheater, time.
—Ben Jonson, 1601Time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions.
—James Joyce, 1922Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
—Cormac McCarthy, 1992There is no work of human hands which time does not wear away and reduce to dust.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 46 BCA watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
—Jane Austen, 1814This is Year Zero.
—Pol Pot, 1975The appointed thing comes at the appointed time in the appointed way.
—Myrtle Reed, 1910Do not lessen the time of following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit.
—Ptahhotep, c. 2350 BCTime is a veil interposed between God and ourselves, as our eyelid is between our eye and the light.
—François-René de Chateaubriand, c. 1820Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.
—Simone Weil, 1947Time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace. Usually it loiters, but just when one has come to count upon its slowness, it may suddenly break into a wild irrational gallop.
—Edith Wharton, 1905Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688