Thou art not to learn the humors and tricks of that old bald cheater, time.
—Ben Jonson, 1601Quotes
The celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but rather to a clockwork.
—Johannes Kepler, 1605If 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 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, 1844Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them.
—Charles Lamb, 1810The best way to fill time is to waste it.
—Marguerite Duras, 1987Do not lessen the time of following desire, for the wasting of time is an abomination to the spirit.
—Ptahhotep, c. 2350 BCThere is no work of human hands which time does not wear away and reduce to dust.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 46 BCWithout music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
—Frank Zappa, 1989The appointed thing comes at the appointed time in the appointed way.
—Myrtle Reed, 1910They 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. 620This is Year Zero.
—Pol Pot, 1975A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
—Jane Austen, 1814