Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688Quotes
There is no work of human hands which time does not wear away and reduce to dust.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 46 BCIn time history must become a fairy tale—it will become again what it was in the beginning.
—Novalis, c. 1798Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
—Frank Zappa, 1989Thou art not to learn the humors and tricks of that old bald cheater, time.
—Ben Jonson, 1601If 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 BCA watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
—Jane Austen, 1814For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCTime rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
—Tennessee Williams, 1951Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.
—Simone Weil, 1947I’ve been on a calendar, but never on time.
—Marilyn Monroe, 1962No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.
—Jonathan Swift, 1706Time, 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, 1905