Theme
Time
Impermanence, the present moment, and how we spend our days.
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Verified quotes about time
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“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life”
“A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain”
“All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike”
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”
“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”
“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life”
“But the best evidence we have that time travel is not possible, and never will be, is that we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future”
“Carpe diem”
“Confine yourself to the present”
“Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly”
“Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along”
“Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you”
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of”
“Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave has had kings among his ancestors”
“Every moment is a fresh beginning”
“Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait”
“Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature”
“Fashion is always a reflection of the times, but it is forgotten if it is foolish”
“Forever is composed of nows”
“History is more or less bunk”
“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly”
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world”
“I can't believe how fast 20 years went by... Mamba Out!”
“I very frequently get the question: What's going to change in the next 10 years? I almost never get the question: What's not going to change in the next 10 years?”
“I'll never make the mistake of being 70 years old again”
“In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine”
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
“It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting process”
“Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it”
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs”
“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer”
“Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies”
“My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day”
“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well”
“No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen”
“Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever”
“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful”
“Patience is the art of hoping”
“People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten”
“Please accept our apologies. We were roaring drunk on petroleum”
“Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future”
“So it goes”
“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone”
“The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities”
“The life so short, the craft so long to learn”
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”
“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment”
“The past is but the beginning of a beginning”
“The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine”
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience”
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer”
“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind”
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so”
“Time is Money”
“We can only be said to be alive in the moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasure”
“We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first — rock and roll or Christianity”
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life”
“All compounded things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence”
“By the time you know what to do, you're too old to do it”
“Cool Papa was so fast that he could turn off the light switch and get into bed before the room got dark”
“Death is nature's way of saying, 'Your table is ready.'”
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by”
“If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today”
“In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on”
“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on”
“It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age”
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”
“Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult”
“Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering — because you can't take it all in at once”
“Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty”
“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm”
“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence”
“The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face”
“There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them”
“We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed”
“Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place”
“You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you”
“Your true home is in the here and the now”
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Don’t get caught out
Commonly shared about time — but misattributed
Popular time lines that get pinned on the wrong name. If you use one, credit it correctly.
“There Was a Young Lady Named Bright Whose Speed Was Far Faster Than Light”
ReallyA. H. Reginald Buller · not Albert Einstein
“It Will Take Them Ten Years to Prove Me Wrong”
ReallyUnknown · not Winston Churchill
“Those Who Love Deeply Never Grow Old”
ReallyArthur Wing Pinero · not Benjamin Franklin
“If I Am To Speak Ten Minutes, I Need a Week for Preparation; If an Hour, I Am Ready Now”
ReallyWoodrow Wilson · not Abraham Lincoln
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”
ReallyOrigin unknown · not Vladimir Lenin
“When the End of the World Comes, I Want To Be in Cincinnati. It Is Always Ten Years Behind the Times”
ReallyUnknown (an anonymous German saying) · not George Bernard Shaw
“Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well”
ReallyWilliam Shakespeare
“It is possible to live happily in the present moment. It is the only moment we have”
ReallyThích Nhất Hạnh · not Gautama Buddha
“The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There's only one moment for you to live”
ReallyThích Nhất Hạnh · not Gautama Buddha
“Things are more like they are now than they ever have been”
ReallyUnknown humorist · not Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world”
ReallyUnknown advertising copywriter · not John D. Rockefeller
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important”
An unnamed “former college president” — quoted by Dwight D. Eisenhower
“How long is forever? Sometimes, just one second”
ReallyUnknown · not Lewis Carroll
“Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings”
ReallyJane Austen
“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get”
ReallyUnknown · not Lewis Carroll
“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time”
ReallyUnknown · not Jane Austen
“A Day Without Laughter Is a Day Wasted”
ReallyNicolas Chamfort · not Charlie Chaplin
“A Man Is a Fool If He Drinks Before He Reaches Fifty, and a Fool If He Doesn't Drink Afterward”
ReallyUnknown — an anonymous medical saying · not Frank Lloyd Wright