The celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but rather to a clockwork.

My 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.

Time, 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.

The appointed thing comes at the appointed time in the appointed way.

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.