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Quotes about time
Seneca's argument in On the Shortness of Life is uncomfortable: life is long enough, and we hand it out to anyone who asks. He wrote that about two thousand years ago, and meetings have not improved things.
Marcus Aurelius keeps telling himself how small a stretch he has, and Thoreau measures the price of things in hours of life. Old writers on time are rarely consoling, and few of them would have approved of a phone.
From the books
Checked word for word against public-domain editions.
Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.
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Do the things external which fall upon thee distract thee? Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around. But then thou must also avoid being carried about the other way; for those too are triflers who have wearied themselves in life by their activity, and yet have no object to which to direct every movement, and, in a word, all their thoughts.
The time will come, and that soon, and with equal certainty, whether you hang back or press forward; for time flies.
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M. The time will come, and that soon, and with equal certainty, whether you hang back or press forward; for time flies. But death is so far from being an evil, as it lately appeared to you, that I am inclined to suspect, not that there is no other thing which is an evil to man, but rather that there is nothing else which is a real good to him; if, at least, it is true that we become thereby …
What we do is short, what we shall do is doubtful, but what we have done is certain, and out of the power of fortune.
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In the division of life, there is time present, past, and to come. What we do is short, what we shall do is doubtful, but what we have done is certain, and out of the power of fortune. The passage of time is wonderfully quick, and a man must look backward to see it; and, in that retrospect, he has all past ages at a view; but the present gives us the slip unperceived. It is but a moment that we live, and yet we are dividing it into childhood, youth, man’s …
Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.
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To the guests that must go bid God's speed and brush away all traces of their steps. Take to your bosom with a smile what is easy and simple and near. To-day is the festival of phantoms that know not when they die. Let your laughter be but a meaningless mirth like twinkles of light on the ripples. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. Strike in chords from your harp fitful momentary rhythms. 46 You left me and went on your way. I thought I should mourn for you and set your solitary image in my heart wrought in a golden song. But ah, my evil fortune, time is short. Youth wanes year after year; the spring days are fugitive; the
Events and time do not wait.
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A commander in chief’s business, it would seem, is simply to choose one of these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and time do not wait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested to him to cross to the Kalúga road, but just then an adjutant gallops up from Milorádovich asking whether he is to engage the French or retire. An order must be given him at once, that instant. And the order to retreat carries …
Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
Whither are you looking, whither are you stretching forward? everything future is uncertain: live now straightway.
Nature never hurries: atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work.
Time is the only little fragment of Eternity that belongs to man; and, like life, it can never be recalled.
The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put.
The use of history is to give value to the present hour and its duty.
Every day is a leaf in the book of life.
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
Often a man who is very old in years has nothing beyond his age by which he can prove that he has lived a long time.
Our time is set, and day and night we travel on.
All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in time.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Resolutely build a wall about to-day, and live within the inclosure.
Leave it to time, don’t worry about it.
Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day.
Everything must be waited for.
Time can be economized by system.
Life is a matter which does not admit of waste, and we have no spare time to throw away.
How late it is to begin life just when we have to be leaving it!
How soon will time cover all things, and how many it has covered already.
In proportion as the possession of life is more short, I must make it so much deeper and fuller.
Just to fill the hour,—that is happiness.
Five minutes of today are worth as much to me as five minutes in the next millennium.
Every evening we are poorer by a day.
Life is long enough, if you know how to use it.
Death's stamp gives value to the coin of life; making it possible to buy with life what is truly precious.
Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present.
Where have you buried your best days?
Never be afraid of the moments—thus sings the voice of the everlasting.
The hero then will know how to wait, as well as to make haste.
Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life.
Popular sayings
Widely repeated lines with no name attached, because nobody can honestly put one on them.
Life is a gift.
Rome wasn't built in a day.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago; the second best time is now.
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
You can't turn back the clock.
Time is money.
Life can only be understood backwards.
There's no time like the present.
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