What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.
—John Howe (b.1957) Canadian Artist
There is a time for work. And a time for love. That leaves no other time.
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French Fashion Designer, Businessperson, Entrepreneur
It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
—Jim Bishop (1907–87) American Journalist, Author
Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.
—Richard Sapir American Novelist
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Writer, Essayist, Historian
Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of the nonessentials.
—Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese Writer, Inventor
So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher, Lecturer, Essayist, Poet
What do you want to get done? In what order of importance? Over what period of time? What is the time available? What is the best strategy for application of time to projects for the most effective results?
—Ted Engstrom (1916–2006) American Christian Religious Leader
You wake up in the morning, and your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of un-manufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist
An Italian philosopher said that “time was his estate” an estate indeed which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labors of industry, and generally satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie in waste by negligence, to be overrun with noxious plants, or laid out for show rather than for use.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist, Biographer, Poet, Writer, Literary Critic
Make the most of today. Translate your good intentions into actual deeds. Know that you can do what ought to be done. Improve your plans. Keep a definite goal of achievement constantly in view. Realize that work well and worthily done makes life truly worth living.
—Grenville Kleiser (1868–1935) Canadian Author
Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Indian Hindu Polymath, Novelist, Poet, Essayist, Philosopher
Time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Time turns the old days to derision, our loves into corpses or wives; and marriage and death and division make barren our lives.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English Poet, Novelist
If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson, Actor, Philosopher, Film Director, Screenwriter
Live while you live, the epicure would say, and seize the pleasures of the present day; Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries, and give to God each moment as it flies. Lord, in my view, let both united be; I live in pleasure when I live to thee.
—Philip Doddridge (1702–51) English Nonconformist Religious Leader, Educator, Hymn writer
City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind’s eye the notion of a better life ahead.
—Edward Hoagland (b.1932) American Essayist, Novelist
A sense of the value of time … is an essential preliminary to efficient work; it is the only method of avoiding hurry.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist
He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is a like a ray of life which darts itself through all his occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Essayist
We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.
—Thomas Wolfe
Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last.
—Abraham Cowley (1618–67) English Poet
It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience.
—George Gissing (1857–1903) English Novelist
A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Socialist
Anything that is wasted effort represents wasted time. The best management of our time thus becomes linked inseparably with the best utilization of our efforts.
—Ted Engstrom (1916–2006) American Christian Religious Leader
Time is an avid gambler who has no need to cheat to win every time.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Scientist, Critic, Writer
All my possessions for a moment of time.
—Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) British Monarch
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them—every day begin the task anew.
—Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French Catholic Saint, Clergyman
The best way to secure future happiness is to be as happy as is rightfully possible today.
—Charles William Eliot (1834–1926) American Educator, Academic
It is better to do the most trifling thing in the world than to regard half an hour as trifle.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet, Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
But at my back I always hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near.
—Andrew Marvell (1621–78) English Poet
No man goes before his time — unless the boss leaves early.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is. No object is served in waiting until next week or even until to-morrow. Keep going day in and out. Concentrate on something useful. Having decided to achieve a task, achieve it at all costs.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson, Actor, Philosopher, Film Director, Screenwriter
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright, Poet, Author
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Indian Hindu Polymath, Novelist, Poet, Essayist, Philosopher
Flow in the living moment.—We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson, Actor, Philosopher, Film Director, Screenwriter
The geometry of landscape and situation seems to create its own systems of time, the sense of a dynamic element which is cinematizing the events of the canvas, translating a posture or ceremony into dynamic terms. The greatest movie of the 20th century is the Mona Lisa, just as the greatest novel is Gray’s Anatomy.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
I am ready any time. Do not keep me waiting.
—John Mason Brown (1900–69) American Columnist, Journalist, Author
Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains, if we will only stop the waste and the idle, useless regretting.
—Arthur Brisbane (1864–1936) American Journalist, Editor
Timely service, like timely gifts, is doubled in value.
—George Macdonald (1824–1905) Scottish Christian Author, Poet, Minister
We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
We are involved in a life that passes understanding: our highest business is our daily life.
—John Cage (1912–92) American Composer, Philosopher, Poet, Artist
It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson, Actor, Philosopher, Film Director, Screenwriter
Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.
—George Gissing (1857–1903) English Novelist
The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.
—Mike Murdock
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
Time! suspend your flight. Propitious hours, suspend your course! Let us savour the swift delights of the most beautiful of our days.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Writer, Poet, Politician, Memoirist
A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Logician, Mathematician, Historian, Social Critic
Time is the one thing we possess. Our success depends upon the use of our time, and its by-product, the odd moment.
—Arthur Brisbane (1864–1936) American Journalist, Editor
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
—Frank Zappa (1940–93) American Composer, Musician
An earnest purpose finds time, or makes it. It seizes on spare moments, and turns fragments to golden account.
—William Ellery Channing
It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man’s own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
What we love to do we find time to do.
—John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) American Catholic Clergyman, Educator, Essayist, Biographer
Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed.
—Grenville Kleiser (1868–1935) Canadian Author
Time is money, especially when you are talking to a lawyer or buying a commercial.
—Frank Lane (1896–1981) American Sportsperson, Businessperson
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
Be strong!|We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;|We have hard work to do and loads to lift;|Shun not the struggle — face it; ’tis God’s gift.
—Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858–1901) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Writer
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
—Philip James Bailey (1816–1902) English Poet
Ah! the clock is always slow; it is later than you think.
—Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Scottish Poet, Author
Life is growth-a challenge of environment. If we cannot meet our everyday surroundings with equanimity and pleasure and grow each day in some useful direction, then this splendid balance of cosmic forces which we call life is on the road toward misfortune, misery and destruction. Therefore, health is the most precious of all things.
—Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American Botanist, Scientist