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Who really said it

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once

Ray Cummings — a pulp science-fiction writer, 1919 Ray Cummings 1887–1957 · American science-fiction writer
Disputed Free to reuse

Not Einstein. The joke belongs to Ray Cummings, a pulp science-fiction writer who put it in the mouth of a character in The Girl in the Golden Atom, published in All-Story Weekly on 15 March 1919, and used it again in ‘The Time Professor’ in Argosy All-Story Weekly on 8 January 1921. His wording is tighter than the version now in circulation: ‘Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.’ No Einstein source of any kind has ever been produced, and Princeton University Press’s The Ultimate Quotable Einstein files it under ‘Probably Not By Einstein.’

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once” Ray Cummings actually wrote: "Time is what keeps everything from happening at once." All-Story Weekly, 15 March 1919. Not Albert Einstein.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Albert Einstein. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

Evoking the world of Albert Einstein — theoretical physicist. Theme: "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Document
‘The Girl in the Golden Atom’
Published
All-Story Weekly, 15 March 1919
Repeated
‘The Time Professor’, Argosy All-Story Weekly, 8 January 1921
Einstein source
None — no instance exists

"Time," he said, "is what keeps everything from happening at once." Ray Cummings, 1919

Cummings’s original, from the 1919 magazine story. Notice it is a character’s throwaway line in an adventure serial about a man who shrinks into an atom — a gag, not a proposition about physics. The popular modern rewrite (‘the only reason for time is…’) turns a joke into a claim, which is roughly the opposite of what he was doing.

Quote Investigator — traced to All-Story Weekly, March 1919

How we traced it

  • The earliest located instance is Cummings’s 1919 magazine story. He liked the line enough to reuse it in 1921 in ‘The Time Professor’ — where it appears with a beat of hesitation, ‘Time,’ he added slowly, ‘time is what keeps everything from happening at once’ — and again in 1922 when he expanded the stories into a novel the trace ↗.
  • The physicist John Archibald Wheeler used the saying in a 1989 workshop paper — and explicitly disclaimed it, saying he had seen it as graffiti in a Texas restroom. That is how it acquired a physics pedigree without ever acquiring a physicist author.
  • No document, letter, lecture or interview links the saying to Einstein. Princeton University Press, which publishes his papers, puts it in the ‘Probably Not By Einstein’ section of The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010) — the closest thing to an official verdict that exists things he never said ↗.
Public domain

Cummings’s original is public domain in the United States: the 1919, 1921 and 1922 texts were published well before 1929, so their US term has expired regardless of renewal. Cummings died in 1957, which puts the text out of copyright in the UK and EU as well. The one thing to avoid is quoting it as Einstein — not a rights problem, just a factual one. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This one has a clean answer and an unusually well-behaved cast: a pulp writer who coined it, a physicist who used it and refused the credit, and a genius who had nothing to do with it.

Not Albert Einstein no source of any kind

No paper, letter, lecture or reported remark. Princeton University Press files it under ‘Probably Not By Einstein’ in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010) — and the earliest documented instance is a magazine story published when Einstein was busy with general relativity and not writing for the pulps the trace ↗.

The circulating version is a rewrite wording drift

Cummings wrote ‘Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.’ The popular form — ‘the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once’ — adds a purpose clause Cummings never wrote. A joke became a thesis somewhere in transit.

Used it, disclaimed it not the author

The physicist quoted the saying in a 1989 workshop paper and said plainly that he had found it written on a bathroom wall in Texas. He is the likeliest reason the line acquired a physics reputation, and he is also the reason we know it was already folklore by then.

Also credited, also unsupported unsupported

Both names circulate. Neither has a source, and both postdate 1919 as candidates for coining it.

Ray Cummings, in a science-fiction serial in All-Story Weekly on 15 March 1919 — and again in ‘The Time Professor’ in 1921. Einstein has no connection to it the trace ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It is the rare joke that survives being taken seriously. Say it fast and it sounds like a punchline; sit with it and it sounds like a definition — time as the thing that stops the universe arriving in a single undifferentiated lump.

That double life is exactly why it drifted to Einstein. A line that sounds like both a gag and a physics claim needs an author who can carry both, and there is only one candidate the general public can name.

A pulp gag from 1919 that became, by 1989, graffiti on a bathroom wall.

Where a pulp writer got the idea

Ray Cummings worked as a personal assistant and editor for Thomas Edison before turning to fiction, so he was closer to a laboratory than most pulp writers.

‘The Girl in the Golden Atom’ is about a man who shrinks small enough to enter an atom and finds a world inside it. The time remark is a character’s aside, not a set piece.

He reused the line in 1921 and again in the 1922 novel — writers who like a joke tend to repeat it, and the repetition is part of how the trail was reconstructed.

By 1989 it was anonymous enough to be graffiti in a Texas restroom, which is where John Wheeler said he found it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Time Knowledge

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Time Is What Keeps Everything From Happening At Oncequoteinvestigator.com

The archival trace to Ray Cummings in 1919, with the 1921 and 1922 reappearances and the Wheeler disclaimer.
Ray Cummings — sourced quotationstodayinsci.com

A sourced science-quotation dictionary carrying the line under Cummings, not Einstein.
6 Things Albert Einstein Never Saidhistory.com

Background on why Einstein attracts other people’s aphorisms, and how Princeton’s editors sort the genuine from the invented.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Einstein

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · theoretical physicist

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) rewrote what physics means by time, which makes him the natural magnet for any clever remark about time — and he is the most misquoted scientist who has ever lived. Princeton University Press’s edition of his quotations carries whole sections for lines he probably did not say and lines he certainly did not, because the volume of false attributions is large enough to need its own filing system. This one sits in the first of those sections.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Cummings, Ray. “The Girl in the Golden Atom.” All-Story Weekly, 15 March 1919. Repeated in “The Time Professor,” Argosy All-Story Weekly, 8 January 1921.

MLA (9th ed.)

Cummings, Ray. “The Girl in the Golden Atom.” All-Story Weekly, 15 Mar. 1919.

APA (7th ed.)

Cummings, R. (1919, March 15). The girl in the golden atom. All-Story Weekly.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-only-reason-for-time-is-so-that-everything-doesnt

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