Time

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How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind? ~ Douglas Adams
Eternity is in love with the productions of time. ~ William Blake
Time goes, you say? Ah no, alas, time stays, we go. ~ Henry Austin Dobson
Time is money. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have. ~ Rollo May
Time, time, time,
see what's become of me,
While I looked around,
For my possibilities;
I was so hard to please.
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
~ Paul Simon
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven... ~ Solomon
Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. ~ Jean-Luc Picard

Time is a concept referring to the perceived flow of actions and events from the past to future, or to its measurement. In Physics it is also referred to as "the fourth dimension" of a space-time continuum.

See also: Eternity

Contents

Quotes [edit]

Arranged alphabetically by author
  • O let not Time deceive you,
    You cannot conquer Time.
  • Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
    • William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, "Proverbs of Hell".
  • Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. After all Number One, we're only mortal.
  • Time is not bought ready-made at the watchmaker's.
  • Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him
    In soul and aspect as in age; years steal
    Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;
    And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
  • O Time! the beautifier of the dead,
    Adorner of the ruin, comforter
    And only healer when the heart hath bled—
    Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
    The test of truth, love, sole philosopher,
    For all besides are sophists, from thy thrift
    Which never loses though it doth defer—
    Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
    My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift.
  • With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness.
    • Thomas Chalmers, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 584.
  • In the spirit of faith let us begin each day, and we shall be sure to " redeem the time " which it brings to us, by changing it into something definite and eternal. There is a deep meaning in this phrase of the apostle, to redeem time. We redeem time, and do not merely use it. We transform it into eternity by living it aright.
    • James Freeman Clarke, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 583.
  • Time,— that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.
    • Charles Caleb Colton, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 582.
  • A butterfly
    Fluttering over the vendor's
    Dry flowers of spring
    Only two days it flies
    Caught by the lost boy
    Yet still.
    • For Peng Fajardo by Shane Castro in The Now.
  • He is changing times and seasons, removing kings and setting up kings.
  • Time present and time past
    Are both perhaps present in time future,
    And time future contained in time past.
    If all time is eternally present
    All time is unredeemable.
  • Lots of things take time, and time was Momo's only form of wealth.
  • All dwelling in one house are strange brothers three,
    as unlike as any three brothers could be,
    yet try as you may to tell brother from brother,
    you'll find that the trio resemble each other.
    The first isn't there, though he'll come beyond doubt.
    The second's departed, so he's not about.
    The third and the smallest is right on the spot,
    And manage without him the others could not.
    Yet the third factor with which to be reckoned
    Because the first brother turns into the second.
    You cannot stand back and observe number three,
    For one of the others is all you will see.
    So tell me, my child, are the three of them one?
    Or are there but two? Or could there be none?
    Just name them, and you will at once realize
    That each rules a kingdom of infinite size.
    They rule it together and are it as well.
    In that, they're alike, so where do they dwell?
  • The best general means to insure the profitable employment of our time, is to accustom ourselves to living in continual dependence upon the Spirit of God and His law, receiving, every instant, whatever He is pleased to bestow; consulting Him in every emergency requiring instant action, and having recourse to Him in our weaker moments when virtue seems to fail.
    • François Fénelon, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 583.
  • Dost thou love life? then do not squander time; for that is the stuff life is made of.
    • Benjamin Franklin, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 582.
  • Thirty days hath November,
    April, June, and September,
    February hath xxviii alone,
    And all the rest have xxxi.
    • Richard Grafton, Abridgement of the Chronicles of Englande (1570); 8vo; "A rule to knowe how many dayes every moneth in the yeare hath."
    • Variations include:
      • Thirty days hath September,
        April, June, and November;
        February eight-and-twenty all alone,
        And all the rest have thirty-one:
        Unless that leap-year doth combine,
        And give to February twenty-nine.
        • Return from Parnassus (London, 1606).
      • Thirty days hath September,
        April, June, and November;
        All the rest have thirty-one
        Excepting February alone:
        Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
        Till leap year gives it twenty-nine.
      • Thirty days has September,
        April, June, and November;
        All the rest have thirty-one,
        Except for second month alone:
        To which we donate twenty-eight,
        'Till leap year brings us twenty-nine.
        • Common in New England States.
      • Fourth, eleventh, ninth, and sixth,
        Thirty days to each affix;
        Every other thirty-one,
        Except the second month alone.
        • Common in Chester Co., Pa., among the Friends; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 524.
  • Time is a game played beautifully by children.
    • Heraclitus, as quoted in Fragments (2001) translated by Brooks Haxton
  • Old Tune, in whose banks we deposit our notes,
    Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats;
    He keeps all his customers still in arrears
    By lending them minutes and charging them years.
  • Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost
    • Bishop George Horne, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 583.
  • The Bird of Time has but a little way
    To flutter — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing
  • The Bird of Time has but a little way
    To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
    • (1859 edition).
  • Time: a great engraver, or eraser.
    • Yahia Lababidi (b. 1973), Egyptian-Lebanese essayist and poet. Signposts to Elsewhere (2008).
  • How awful that silent, unceasing footfall of receding days is when once we begin to watch it! Inexorable, passionless— though hope and fear may pray, " Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon," — the tramp of the hours goes on. The poets paint them as a linked chorus of rosy forms, garlanded and clasping hands as they dance onwards. So they may be to some of us at some moments. So they may seem as they approach; but those who come hold the hands of those that go, and that troop have no rosy light upon their limbs, their garlands are faded, the sunshine falls not upon the gray and shrouded shapes, as they steal ghostlike through the gloom.
    • Alexander Maclaren, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 584.
  • Day and night,
    Seed-time and harvest, heat and hoary frost
    Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things new.
  • The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have.
    • Rollo May, Man's Search for Himself (1953).
  • He who cannot find time to consult his Bible will one day find he has time to be sick; he who has no time to pray must find time to die; he who can find no time to reflect is most likely to find time to sin; he who cannot find time for repentance will find an eternity in which repentance will be of no avail; he who cannot find time to work for others may find an eternity in which to suffer for himself.
    • Hannah More, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 583.
  • Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.
  • Years following years steal something ev'ry day.
    At last they steal us from ourselves away.
    • Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace (1733 to 1738), Book II, Epistle 2, line 72.
  • Hours are golden links, God's token
    Reaching heaven; but one by one
    Take them, lest the chain be broken
    Ere the pilgrimage be done.
    • Adelaide Anne Procter, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 583.
  • All investigations of Time, however sophisticated or abstract, have at their true base the human fear of mortality.
  • Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.
  • Urbes constituit ætas: hora dissolvit: momento fit cinis: diu sylva.
    An age builds up cities: an hour destroys them. In a moment the ashes are made, but a forest is a long time growing.
    • Seneca, Quæstionum Naturalium, Book III. 27.
  • Nemo tam divos habuit faventes,
    Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri.
    Nobody has ever found the gods so much his friends that he can promise himself another day.
  • Let's take the instant by the forward top;
    For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
    The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
    Steals ere we can effect them.
  • And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
    Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock:
    Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."
  • Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.
  • There's a time for all things.
  • See the minutes, how they run,
    How many make the hour full complete;
    How many hours bring about the day;
    How many days will finish up the year;
    How many years a mortal man may live.
  • Minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
    Pass'd over to the end they were created,
    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
    Ah, what a life were this!
  • Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides;
    Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.
  • If you can look into the seeds of time,
    And say which grain will grow and which will not;
    Speak then to me.
  • Come what come may,
    Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
  • I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
    For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
    Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
    Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
    Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
    Show minutes, times, and hours.
  • Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
    Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
    A great-sized monster of ingratitudes;
    Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
    As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
    As done.
  • Time is like a fashionable host
    That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
    And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly
    Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles.
  • Beauty, wit,
    High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
    Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
    To envious and calumniating time.
  • Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
    Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
    Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
    Rot and consume themselves in little time.
  • The flow of time is always cruel... its speed seems different for each person, but no one can change it... A thing that does not change with time is a memory of younger days...
  • Time, time, time, see what's become of me,
    While I looked around,
    For my possibilities;
    I was so hard to please.
    But look around, leaves are brown
    And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
  • There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven — A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.
  • This thing all things devours:
    Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
    Gnaws iron, bites steel,
    Grinds hard stones to meal;
    Slays king, ruins town,
    And beats high mountain down.
  • Time is a waste of money.
    • Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894).
  • Make use of time, if thou valuest eternity. Yesterday cannot be recalled; to-morrow cannot be assured; to-day only is thine, which, if thou procrastinatest, thou losest, which loss is lost forever.
    • Jeremy Taylor, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 582.
  • When your legs get weaker time starts running faster.
    • Mikhail Turovsky (b. 1933), Russian-American artist and aphorist. Itch of Wisdom Cicuta Press (1986).
  • We all have our time machines, don't we? Those that take us back are memories. Those that carry us forward are dreams.
  • Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus.
    • But meanwhile time flies; it flies never to be regained.
    • Virgil, Georgics (c. 29 BC), III. 284.
  • Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque.
    • Time bears away all things, even our minds.
    • Virgil, Eclogues (c. c. 42 BC), Book IX, line 51.
  • Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.
  • Ungodly men by their words and deeds summoned death;
    considering him a friend, they pined away,
    and they made a covenant with him,
    because they are fit to belong to his party.
    For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
    "Short and sorrowful is our life,
    and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end,
    and no one has been known to return from Hades.
    Because we were born by mere chance,
    and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been;
    because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
    and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.
    When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
    and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
    Our name will be forgotten in time,
    and no one will remember our works;
    our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
    and be scattered like mist
    that is chased by the rays of the sun
    and is overcome by its heat.
    For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
    and there is no return from our death,
    because it is sealed up and no one turns back."
    Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
    for their wickedness blinded them.
  • Nought treads so silent as the foot of Time;
    Hence we mistake our autumn for our prime.
  • The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
    But from its loss: to give it then a tongue
    Is wise in man.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night I, line 55.
  • Procrastination is the thief of time:
    Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
    And to the mercies of a moment leaves
    The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night I, line 390.
  • Time is eternity;
    Pregnant with all eternity can give;
    Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.
    Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth
    A power ethereal, only not adorn'd.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night II, line 107.
  • Time wasted is existence, used is life.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night II, line 149.
  • We push time from us, and we wish him back;
    * * * * * *
    Life we think long and short; death seek and shun.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night II, line 174.
  • In leaves, more durable than leaves of brass,
    Writes our whole history.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night II, line 275.
  • We see time's furrows on another's brow,
    * * * * *
    How few themselves in that just mirror see!
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night V, line 627.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations [edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 792-801.
  • Six years—six little years—six drops of time.
  • Modo, et modo, non habebent modum.
    By-and-by has no end.
  • Backward, flow backward, O full tide of years!
    I am so weary of toil and of tears,
    Toil without recompense—tears all in vain,
    Take them and give me my childhood again.
    I have grown weary of dust and decay,
    Weary of flinging my heart's wealth away—
    Weary of sowing for others to reap;
    Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.
    • A. M. W. Ball, Rock me to Sleep, Mother. Attributed to Elizabeth Akers Allen. See Northern Monthly, Volume II. 1868. Pub. by Allen line Bassett, Newark, N. J. Appendix to March, Volume II. 1868. Ball shows proof that he wrote it in 1856–7. Produces witness who saw it before 1860. Mrs. Allen says she wrote it in Italy, 1860. It was published in The Knickerbocker Magazine, May, 1861.
  • Backward, turn backward, then time in your flight;
    Make me a child again just for tonight.
    Mother, come back from the echoeless shore,
    Take me again to your heart as of yore.
  • Why slander we the times?
    What crimes
    Have days and years, that we
    Thus charge them with iniquity?
    If we would rightly scan,
    It's not the times are bad, but man.
  • Le temps fuit, et nous traîne avec soi:
    Le moment où je parle est déjà loin de moi.
    Time flies and draws us with it. The moment in which I am speaking is already far from me.
  • What's not destroyed by Time's devouring hand?
  • Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition, for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it.
  • Behind, he hears Time's iron gates close faintly,
    He is now far from them;
    For he has reached the city of the saintly,
    The New Jerusalem.
    • Rev. James D. Burns, Poem of a Death Believer, in the Vision of Prophecy.
  • Some wee short hour ayont the twal.
  • Nae man can tether time or tide.
  • How slowly time creeps till my Phœbe returns!
    While amidst the soft zephyr's cool breezes I burn.
    Methinks if I knew whereabouts he would tread,
    I could breathe on his wings and 'twould melt down the lead.
    Fly swifter, ye minutes, bring hither my dear,
    And rest so much longer for 't when she is here.
  • The good old times—all times when old are good—
    Are gone.
  • Thinkst thou existence doth depend on time?
    It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine
    Have made my days and nights imperishable,
    Endless, and all alike.
  • Out upon Time! it will leave no more
    Of the things to come than the things before!
    Out upon Time! who forever will leave
    But enough of the past for the future to grieve.
  • He more we live, more brief appear
    Our life's succeeding stages;
    A day to childhood seems a year,
    And years like passing ages.
  • Time's fatal wings do ever forward fly;
    To every day we live, a day we die.
  • That great mystery of TIME, were there no other; the illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean tide, on which we and all the Universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb,—for we have no word to speak about it.
  • No ay memoria à quien el tiempo no acabe, ni dolor que nuerte no le consuma.
    There is no remembrance which time does not obliterate, nor pain which death does not put an end to.
  • Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
  • Opinionum enim commenta delet dies; naturæ judicia confirmat.
    Time destroys the groundless conceits of men; it confirms decisions founded on reality.
    • Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II. 2.
  • O tempora! O mores!
    O what times (are these)! what morals!
    • Cicero, Orationes in Catilinam, I. 2.
  • No! no arresting the vast wheel of time,
    That round and round still turns with onward might,
    Stern, dragging thousands to the dreaded night
    Of an unknown hereafter.
  • Hours are Time's shafts, and one comes winged with death.
    • On the clock at Keir House, near Denblane, the Seat of Sir William Stirling Maxwell.
  • Sex horas somno, totidem des legibus æquis
    Quatuor orabis, des epulisque duas;
    Quod superest ultra sacris largire Camœnis.
    Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
    Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.
    • Edward Coke introduced this as "ancient verses" in Institutes of the Laws of England, Book II, Chapter I. Section 85. See also Gilbert's Law of Evidence. (1784). "Sex horis dormire sat est juvenique senique: / Septem vix pigro; nulli concedimus octo." Six hours in sleep is enough for youth and age. Perhaps seven for the lazy, but we allow eight to no one. Version from Collectio Salernitans. Ed. De Renzi, Volume II, line 130.
  • Now is the accepted time.
    • II Corinthians, VI. 2.
  • Touch us gently, Time!
    Let us glide adown thy stream
    Gently,—as we sometimes glide
    Through a quiet dream!
  • Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise,
    He who defers this work from day to day,
    Does on a river's bank expecting stay,
    Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone,
    That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.
    • Abraham Cowley, The Danger of Procrastination, translation of Horace. 1, Epistle II. 4.
  • Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
    But an eternal Now does always last.
  • His time's forever, everywhere his place.
  • Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
    Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound.
  • See Time has touched me gently in his race,
    And left no odious furrows in my face.
    • George Crabbe, Tales of the Hall (1819), Book XVII. The Widow, Stanza 3.
  • Swift speedy Time, feathered with flying hours,
    Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
  • Che'l perder tempo a chi più sa più spiace.
    The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.
  • Old Time, that greatest and longest established spinner of all!… his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes.
  • But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day and the race a life.
  • Time, to the nation as to the individual, is nothing absolute; its duration depends on the rate of thought and feeling.
  • When Time shall turne those Amber Lockes to Gray.
  • (Time) with his silent sickle.
  • And write whatever Time shall bring to pass
    With pens of adamant on plates of brass.
  • Who well lives, long lives: for this age of ours
    Should not be numbered by years, daies and hours.
  • To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
    • Ecclesiastes, III. 1.
  • Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.
    • Ecclesiastes, VII. 10.
  • Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.
  • Dilatio damnum habet, mora periculum.
    Procrastination brings loss, delay danger.
  • The four eights, that ideal of operative felicity, are here (New Zealand) a realized fact.
    • J. A. Froude, Oceana, Chapter XIV. The four eights are explained in a footnote to be "Eight to work, eight to play, eight to sleep, and eight shillings a day".
  • I count my time by times that I meet thee;
    These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons,
    And nights, these are my old moons and my new moons.
    Slow fly the hours, fast the hours flee,
    If thou art far from or art near to me:
    If thou art far, the bird's tunes are no tunes;
    If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes.
  • Ein stiller Geist ist Jahre lang geschäftig;
    Die Zeit nur macht die feine Gährung kräftig.
    Long is the calm brain active in creation;
    Time only strengthens the fine fermentation.
  • Mein Vermächtniss, wie herrlich weit und breit;
    Die Zeit ist mein Vermächtniss, mein Acker ist die Zeit.
    My inheritance, how wide and fair
    Time is my estate; to Time I'm heir.
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Travels. Translation by Carlyle in Sartor Resartus. "My inheritance how lordly wide and fair; / Time is my fair seed-field, to Time I'm heir." Carlyle's version in Chartism, Chapter X. "Mein Erbteil wie herrlich, weit und breit; / Die Zeit ist mein Besitz, mein Acker ist die Zeit." Goethe—Westöstliche Divan, VI. Buch der Sprüche. (Original version).
  • Rich with the spoils of time.
    • Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 13.
  • I made a posy while the day ran by;
    Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
    My life within this band.
    But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
    By noon most cunningly did steal away,
    * And wither'd in my hand.
  • Thus times do shift; each thing his turne does hold;
    New things succeed, as former things grow old.
  • Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
    Old Time is still a flying,
    And this same flower that smiles to-day,
    To-morrow will be dying.
    • Robert Herrick, Hesperides, 208. Same found in Ausonius—Idyllia. 14.
  • But what says the Greek? "In the morning of life, work; in the midday, give counsel; in the evening, pray."
  • Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
    Ætas: carpe diem.
    While we are speaking envious time will have fled. Seize the present day.
    • Horace, Carmina, Book I. 11. 7.
  • Carpe diem, quam minime credula postero.
    Enjoy the present day, trusting very little to the morrow.
    • Horace, Carmina, Book I. 11. 8.
  • Eheu fugaces Postume, Postume,
    Labuntur anni, nec pietas moram
    Rugis et instanti senectæ
    Afferet, indomitæ que morti.
    Poetumus, Postumus, the years glide by us:
    Alas! no piety delays the wrinkles,
    Nor the indomitable hand of Death.
    • Horace, Carmina, Book II. 14. 1.
  • Damnosa quid non imminuit dies?
    What does not destructive time destroy?
    • Horace, Carmina, Book III. 6. 45.
  • Quidquid sub terra est, in apricum proferet ætas;
    Defodiet condetque nitentia.
    Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.
  • Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes.
    Each passing year robs us of some possession.
    • Horace, Epistles, II. 2. 55.
  • Horæ
    Memento cita mors venit, aut victoria læta.
    In the hour's short space comes swift death, or joyful victory.
    • Horace, Satires, Book I. 1. 7.
  • How short our happy days appear!
    How long the sorrowful!
  • To the true teacher, time's hour-glass should still run gold-dust.
  • My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle.
    • Job, VII. 6.
  • And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
  • Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
    Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.
    • Sir William Jones, Ode in Imitation of Alcæus. See Lord Teignmouth, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir William Jones. Letter to Charles Chapman. Aug. 30, 1784. Also Errata, p. 251. "The muses claim the rest," or "the muse claims all beside" are the changes made by Jones, according to Andrew Amos, Four Lectures on the Advantages of a Classical Education, London, 1846, p. 78.
  • That old bald cheater, Time.
  • The noiseless foot of Tune steals swiftly by
    And ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh.
    • Juvenal, Satires, IX. 129. Gifford's translation.
  • Time, that aged nurse
    Rocked me to patience.
  • Time's waters will not ebb nor stay.
    • John Keble, Christian Year. First Sunday after Christmas.
  • Memento semper finis, et quia perditum non redit tempus.
    Remember always your end, and that lost time does not return.
  • Time, which strengthens Friendship, weakens Love.
  • Vingt siècles descendus dans l'éternelle nuit.
    Y sont sans mouvement, sans lumière et sans bruit.
  • Twenty ages sunk in eternal night. They are without movement, without light, and without noise.
    • Lemoine, Œuvres Poétiques, Saint Louis.
  • Potius sero quam nunquam.
    Better late than never.
    • Livy, IV, II. 11. Bunyan—Pilgrim's Progress, Part I. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 9. Matthew Henry—Commentaries. Matthew XXI. Murphy—School for Guardians, Act I. Tusser—Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. An Habitation enforced.
  • Time has laid his hand
    Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
    But as a harper lays his open palm
    Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
  • Alas! it is not till Time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of human passion with, from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.
  • A handful of red sand from the hot clime
    Of Arab deserts brought,
    Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,
    The minister of Thought.
  • What we want, we have for our pains
    The promise that if we but wait
    Till the want has burned out of our brains,
    Every means shall be present to state;
    While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
    While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
    When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold,
    And everything comes too late—too late.
  • Volat hora per orbem.
    The hours fly around in a circle.
  • Æquo stat fœdare tempus.
    Time stands with impartial law.
  • But at my back I always hear
    Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near.
  • Such phantom blossoms palely shining
    Over the lifeless boughs of Time.
  • The signs of the times.
    • Matthew, XVI. 3.
  • Time is a feathered thing,
    And, whilst I praise
    The sparkling of thy looks, and call them rays,
    Takes wing,
    Leaving behind him as he flies
    An unperceivèd dimness in thine eyes.
  • However we pass Time, he passes still,
    Passing away whatever the pastime,
    And, whether we use him well or ill,
    Some day he gives us the slip for the last time.
  • Who can undo
    What time hath done? Who can win back the wind?
    Reckon lost music from a broken lute?
    Renew the redness of a last year's rose?
    Or dig the sunken sunset from the deep?
    • Owen Meredith, Orval, or the Fool of Time, Second Epoch, scene 1. Said to be a translation of a French translation of The Inferno. See Saturday Review. London. Feb. 27, 1869.
  • When time is flown, how it fled
    It is better neither to ask nor tell,
    Leave the dead moments to bury their dead.
    • Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), Wanderer, Book IV. Two out of the Crowd, Stanza 17.
  • Time, eftsoon will tumble
    All of us together like leaves in a gust,
    Humbled indeed down into the dust.
  • Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.
  • Le temps … souverain médecin de nos passions.
    Time is the sovereign physician of our passions.
  • Time softly there
    Laughs through the abyss of radiance with the gods.
  • A wonderful stream is the river of Time
    As it runs through the realms of tears,
    With a faultless rhythm and musical rhyme,
    And a broader sweep and a surge sublime,
    And blends with the ocean of years.
    • Appeared in Moore's Rural New Yorker (May 31, 1856), probably from Whyte Melville's Uncle John.
  • Time, still as he flies, adds increase to her truth,
    And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
  • Surely in a matter of this kind we should endeavor to do something, that we may say that we have not lived in vain, that we may leave some impress of ourselves on the sands of time.
    • From an alleged Letter of Napoleon to his Minister of the Interior on the Poor Laws. Pub. in The Press, Feb. 1, 1868.
  • For each age is a dream that is dying,
    Or one that is coming to birth.
  • Labitur occulte, fallitque volubilis ætas,
    Ut celer admissis labitur amnis aquis.
    Time steals on and escapes us, like the swift river that glides on with rapid stream.
    • Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), I. 8. 49.
  • Dum loquor hora fugit.
    While I am speaking the hour flies.
    • Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), Book I. 11. 15.
  • Tempore difficiles veniunt ad aratra juvenci;
    Tempore lenta pati frena docentur equi.
    In time the unmanageable young oxen come to the plough; in time the horses are taught to endure the restraining bit.
    • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, Book I. 471.
  • Nec, quæ præteriit, iterum revocabitur unda:
    Nec, quæ præteriit, hora redire potest.
    Neither will the wave which has passed be called back; nor can the hour which has gone by return.
    • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, Book III. 63.
  • Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus,
    Et certam præsens vix habet hora fidem.
    Heaven makes sport of human affairs, and the present hour gives no sure promise of the next.
    • Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, IV. 3. 49.
  • Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis;
    Et fugiunt fræno non remorante dies.
    Time glides by, and we grow old with the silent years; and the days flee away with no restraining curb.
    • Ovid, Fasti, VI. 771.
  • Assiduo labuntur tempora motu,
    Non secus ad flumen. Neque enim consistere flumen.
    Nec levis hora potest.
    Time glides by with constant movement, not unlike a stream. For neither can a stream stay its course, nor can the fleeting hour.
    • Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV. 180.
  • Tempus edax rerum.
    Time that devours all things.
    • Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV. 234.
  • Temporis ars medicina fere est.
    Time is generally the best medicine.
    • Ovid, Remedia Amoris. 131.
  • These are the times that try men's souls.
  • Let time that makes you homely, make you sage.
  • Time, the foe of man's dominion,
    Wheels around in ceaseless flight,
    Scattering from his hoary pinion
    Shades of everlasting night.
  • The present is our own; but while we speak,
    We cease from its possession, and resign
    The stage we tread on, to another race,
    As vain, and gay, and mortal as ourselves.
  • Man yields to death; and man's sublimest works
    Must yield at length to Time.
  • Time is lord of thee:
    Thy wealth, thy glory, and thy name are his.
  • His golden locks Time hath to silver turned,
    O time too swift! O swiftness never ceasing!
    His youth 'gainst Time and Age hath ever spurned,
    But spurned in vain! Youth waneth by increasing.
    • George Peele, Sonnet, Polyhymnia. Another version published in Seger's Honor Military and Civil (1602).
  • Tanto brevius omne, quanto felicius tempus.
    The happier the time, the quicker it passes.
  • From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime
    Out of Space—out of Time.
  • Time conquers all, and we must time obey.
  • Gone! gone forever!—like a rushing wave
    Another year has burst upon the shore
    Of earthly being—and its last low tones,
    Wandering in broken accents in the air,
    Are dying to an echo.
  • A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
    • Psalms. XC. 4.
  • We spend our years as a tale that is told.
    • Psalms. XC. 9.
  • Expect, but fear not, Death: Death cannot kill,
    Till Time (that first must seal his patent) will.
    Would'st thou live long? keep Time in high esteem:
    Whom gone, if thou canst not recall, redeem.
  • Dum deliberamus quando incipiendum sit, incipiere jam serum est.
    Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.
  • He briskly and cheerfully asked him how a man should kill time.
  • E'en such is time! which takes in trust
    Our youth, our joys, and all we have;
    And pays us naught but age and dust,
    Which, in the dark and silent grave,
    When we have wandered all our ways,
    Shuts up the story of our days.
    And from which grave, and earth, and dust,
    The Lord will raise me up, I trust.
    • Sir Walter Raleigh. Written in his Bible. Cayley's Life of Raleigh, Volume II, Chapter IX.
  • Hour after hour departs,
    Recklessly flying;
    The golden time of our hearts
    Is fast a-dying:
    O, how soon it will have faded!
    Joy droops, with forehead shaded;
    And Memory starts.
  • Time, like a flurry of wild rain,
    Shall drift across the darkened pane!
  • To vanish in the chinks that Time has made.
  • Que pour les malheureux l'heure lentement fuit!
    How slowly the hours pass to the unhappy.
  • Tag wird es auf die dickste Nacht, und, kommt
    Die Zeit, so reifen auch die spät'sten Früchte.
    Day follows on the murkiest night, and, when the time comes, the latest fruits will ripen.
  • O, wer weiss
    Was in der Zeiten Hintergrunde schlummert.
    Who knows what may be slumbering in the background of time!
  • Time flies on restless pinions—constant never.
    Be constant—and thou chainest time forever.
  • Spät kommt ihr—doch ihr kommt!
    You come late, yet you come!
  • Dreifach ist der Schritt der Zeit:
    Zögernd kommt die Zukunft hergezogen,
    Pfeilschnell ist das Jetzt entflogen,
    Ewig still steht die Vergangenheit.
    Threefold the stride of Time, from first to last:
    Loitering slow, the Future creepeth—
    Arrow-swift, the Present sweepeth—
    And motionless forever stands the Past.
  • Doch zittre vor der langsamen,
    Der stillen Macht der Zeit.
    Yet tremble at the slow, silent power of time.
  • Upon my lips the breath of song,
    Within my heart a rhyme,
    Howe'er time trips or lags along,
    I keep abreast with time!
  • Time rolls his ceaseless course.
  • Infinita est velocitas temporis quæ magis apparet respicientibus.
    The swiftness of time is infinite, which is still more evident to those who look back upon the past.
    • Seneca, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, XLIX.
  • Volat ambiguis
    Mobilis alis hora.
    The swift hour flies on double wings.
  • Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis.
    No time is too short for the wicked to injure their neighbors.
  • Yet, do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong,
    My love shall in my verse ever live young.
  • Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
    And delves the parallels in beauty's brow.
  • O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
    Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
    When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
    Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
    O fearful meditation! where, alack,
    Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
    Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
    Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
  • The flood of time is rolling on;
    We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone
    To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream.
    Have ye done well?
  • Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
    Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
    Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
    Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
    Claspest the limits of mortality!
    And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
    Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore,
    Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
    Who shall put forth on thee,
    Unfathomable sea?
  • Per varios præceps casus rota volvitur ævi.
    • The wheel of time rolls downward through various changes.
    • Silius Italicus, Punica, VI. 121.
  • For time would, with us, 'stead of sand,
    Put filings of steel in his glass,
    To dry up the blots of his hand,
    And spangle life's page as they pass.
    Since all flesh is grass ere 'tis hay,
    O may I in clover lie snug,
    And when old Time mow me away,
    Be stacked with defunct Lady Mugg!
    • Horace and James Smith, Rejected Addresses, The Beautiful Incendiary, by the Hon. W. S. 10.
  • For the next inn he spurs amain,
    In haste alights, and skuds away,
    But time and tide for no man stay.
  • Time wears all his locks before,
    Take thou hold upon his forehead;
    When he flies he turns no more,
    And behind his scalp is naked.
    Works adjourn'd have many stays,
    Long demurs breed new delays.
  • Goe to my Love where she is carelesse layd
    Yet in her winter's bowere not well awake;
    Tell her the joyous time will not be staid
    Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take.
  • Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.
  • Too late I staid, forgive the crime,
    Unheeded flew the hours;
    How noiseless falls the foot of Time
    That only treads on flow'rs!
    What eye with clear account remarks
    The ebbing of his glass,
    When all its sands are diamond sparks
    That dazzle as they pass?
    Ah! who to sober measurement
    Time's happy swiftness brings,
    When birds of Paradise have lent
    Their plumage for his wings?
  • I see that time divided is never long, and that regularity abridges all things.
  • In time take time while time doth last, for time
    Is no time when time is past.
    • Written on the title page of Manuscript account book of Nicholas Stone, mason to James I. In the Soane Museum.
  • Ever eating, never cloying,
    All-devouring, all-destroying,
    Never finding full repast,
    Till I eat the world at last.
  • Lauriger Horatius
    Quam dixisti verum;
    Fugit euro citius
    Tempus edax rerum.
    • Laurel crowned Horatius
      True, how true thy saying,
      Swift as wind flies over us
      Time devouring, slaying.
    • Anon. Translation by John Addington Symonds.
  • A wonderful stream is the River Time,
    As it runs through the realms of Tears,
    With a faultless rhythm, and a musical rhyme,
    And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime
    As it blends with the ocean of Years.
  • He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend:
    Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure
    For life's worst ills to have no time to feel them.
  • Come, Time, and teach me many years,
    I do not suffer in dream;
    For now so strange do these things seem,
    Mine eyes have leisure for their tears.
  • Every moment dies a man,
    Every moment one is born.
    • Alfred Tennyson, Vision of Sin, Stanza 9. ("Minute" for "moment" in early Ed.) "Every minute dies a man, / And one and one-sixteenth is born." Parody on Tennyson by a Statistician.
  • Heu! universum triduum!
    • Alas! three whole days to wait!
    • Terence, Works, II. 1. 17. (Sometimes "totum" given for "universum").
  • I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
    Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
    From the hid battlements of Eternity;
    Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
    Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
  • Once in Persia reigned a king
    Who upon his signet ring
    Graved a maxim true and wise,
    Which if held before the eyes
    Gave him counsel at a glance
    Fit for every change and chance.
    Solemn words, and these are they:
    "Even this shall pass away."
  • Time tries the troth in everything.
    • Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie, The Author's Epistle, Chapter I.
  • The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
    Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.
  • To wind the mighty secrets of the past,
    And turn the key of time.
  • And let its meaning permeate
    Whatever comes, This too shall pass away.
  • He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
  • Our time is a very shadow that passeth away.
    • Wisdom of Solomon, II. 5.
  • Therefore fear not to assay
    To gather, ye that may,
    The flower that this day
    Is fresher than the next.
  • In records that defy the tooth of time.

The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904) [edit]

Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 232-233.
  • It would certainly be a very great mistake to suppose that this Court does not attend to lapse of time.
    • Lord Langdale, M.R., Att.-Gen. v. Pilgrim (1849), 12 Beav. 61.
  • This I take notice of, only to shew an uncertainty as to time.
    • Parker, L.C.J., Purchase's Case (1710), 16 How. St. Tr. 686.
  • The time makes no difference in the reason of the thing.
    • Wilmot, J., Rex v. Inhabitants of Christchurch (1759), 2 Burr. Part IV. 949.
  • Examining by hours is not so unprecedented. It was the old custom among the Romans to examine by the hour-glass.
    • Marlay, L.C.J., Trial of Mary Heath (1744), 18 How. St. Tr. 23. See Jory, 30.
  • As for myself, whenever I sit upon the Bench (which is much oftener than I appear at the Bar), I always give the advocates as much water as they require; for I look upon it as the height of presumption to pretend to guess before a cause is heard what time it will require, as to set limits to an affair before one is acquainted with its extent, especially as the first and most sacred duty of a Judge is patience, which, indeed, is itself a very considerable part of justice. But the advocate will say many things that are useless. Granted. Yet is it not better to hear too much than not to hear enough? Besides, how can you know that the things are useless till you have heard them?
    • Attributed to Pliny by Lord Mackenzie, Studies in Roman Law, with Comparative Views of the Laws of France, England and Ireland, London, 1861, Blackwood.

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