Lost time is never found again.
- Benjamin FranklinTime
Time is the one theme here where every author writes from the same position — none of them had more of it than they had. Seneca devoted an essay to it, and his central claim is uncomfortable: we are not given a short life, we spend it in a way that makes it seem short.
What separates useful quotes on time from decorative ones is whether they discuss measuring it or using it. The first are usually jokes about clocks and calendars. The second ask a question that is hard to answer — where yesterday actually went, and whether the answer could be defended. That distinction predates every tool we have built for managing time, and none of them has removed it.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
- Chinese ProverbIt is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
- SenecaThe life given us by nature is short, but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.
- CiceroThe present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.
- Nikola TeslaBegin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
- SenecaBetter three hours too soon than a minute too late.
- William ShakespeareNothing is worth more than this day.
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThis too shall pass.
- Persian ProverbYesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
- Kahlil GibranThe price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David ThoreauThe two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
- Leo TolstoyNo man ever steps in the same river twice.
- HeraclitusSeize the day, put very little trust in tomorrow.
- HoraceThere is nothing like a dream to create the future.
- Victor HugoA people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.
- Marcus GarveyLife is long if you know how to use it.
- SenecaNothing is ours, except time.
- SenecaHe who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.
- Friedrich SchillerFor every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
- Ralph Waldo EmersonOne always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath TagoreTime stays long enough for anyone who will use it.
- Leonardo da VinciWrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
- Mark TwainForever is composed of nows.
- Emily DickinsonBe happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
- Omar KhayyamHow much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does.
- Marcus AureliusConfine yourself to the present.
- Marcus AureliusStudy the past if you would define the future.
- Confucius