Quotes about time
Hours, seasons, patience and the shortness of life. Quotes about time from proverbs, sundials and the great essayists, many of them only a line long.
The library has 2,697 quotes on this topic. Here are 60 of the most quoted, no more than four from any one writer.
60 quotes about time
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Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough.
Benjamin Franklin The Way to Wealth (Poor Richard Improved) -
To see a world in a grain of sand And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake Auguries of Innocence (first printed in Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake, 1863) -
This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare Hamlet, Act I Scene 3 -
Never leave that till to-morrow, which you can do to-day.
Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack -
But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world; now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence.
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar, Act iii. Sc. 2 -
’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.
William Shakespeare Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2 -
What’s gone and what’s past help Should be past grief.
William Shakespeare The Winter’s Tale, Act iii. Sc.2 -
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol -
A primrose by a river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.
William Wordsworth Peter Bell, Part i. Stanza 12 -
Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle i, Line 225 -
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice -
Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.
Leo Tolstoy War and Peace, 1869 ; said by Kutuzov · translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude -
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Henry David Thoreau Walden -
But, dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack -
The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration.
William Wordsworth It is a beauteous Evening -
A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye; Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.
William Wordsworth She dwelt among the untrodden ways -
Trust no future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, act in the living present! Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life -
Years following years steal something every day; At last they steal us from ourselves away.
Alexander Pope Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle ii, Book ii. Line 72 -
Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.
Edward Young Love of Fame, Satire vi. Line 208 -
Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?
Lucy Maud Montgomery Anne of Green Gables, 1908 (Anne to Marilla) -
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Tennyson Ulysses, Poems -
But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave.
William Wordsworth To a Young Lady. Dear Child of Nature -
Creditors have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.
Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack -
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays. First Series. History -
Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays: First Series -
We do not count a man’s years until he has nothing else to count.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Conduct of Life. Old Age -
In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
Thomas Carlyle Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters -
Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us honour him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
François de La Rochefoucauld Maxims, Maxim 22 · translated by J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell -
The true University of these days is a Collection of Books.
Thomas Carlyle Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters -
The opportunity to do mischief is found a hundred times a day, and that of doing good once a year.
Voltaire -
What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth as I am now.
Lord Byron Childe Harold, Canto II -
Midnight brought on the dusky hour Friendliest to sleep and silence.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Bk. v., Line 667 -
One life,—a little gleam of time between two Eternities.
Thomas Carlyle Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters -
Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Bk. iv., Line 641 -
Condemned whole years in absence to deplore, And image charms he must behold no more.
Alexander Pope Eloise to Abélard -
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed—their present state.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man, Epistle I -
Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom or summer’s rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Bk. iii., Line 40 -
The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Day is done -
This is the place. Stand still, my steed,—Let me review the scene, And summon from the shadowy past The forms that once have been.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Gleam of Sunshine -
In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Builders -
A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour!
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 2 -
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow,—Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 182 -
Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame.
Lord Byron Childe Harold, Canto IV -
A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village, Line 141 -
Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies! Life’s a short summer, man a flower; He dies—alas! how soon he dies!
Samuel Johnson Winter. An Ode -
O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!
Walter Scott Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 30 -
No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.
Abraham Lincoln October 15 -
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens -
The dogmas of the past are inadequate to the stormy present.
Abraham Lincoln January (motto) -
It is better only sometimes to be right than at all times wrong.
Abraham Lincoln March 20 -
Superior men, and yet not always virtuous, there have been, alas! But there never has been a mean man, and, at the same time, virtuous.
Confucius Analects, XIV.7 · translated by James Legge -
I thought I had no heart. I find I have, and a heart doesn’t suit me. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress. It makes one look old, and it spoils one’s career at critical moments.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
Men should utter nothing for which they would not be willingly responsible through time and in eternity.
Abraham Lincoln November 1 -
Make it a point to do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Mark Twain Following the Equator -
It is not easy to find a man who has learned for three years without coming to be good.
Confucius Analects, VIII.12 · translated by James Legge -
Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defences within and without, so let a man guard himself. Not a moment should escape, for they who allow the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in hell.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 315 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Each time that one loves is the only time that one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
Let a wise man blow off the impurities of his self, as a smith blows off the impurities of silver one by one, little by little, and from time to time.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 239 · translated by F. Max Müller -
The sun is bright by day, the moon shines by night, the warrior is bright in his armour, the Brahmana is bright in his meditation; but Buddha, the Awakened, is bright with splendour day and night.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 387 · translated by F. Max Müller
Who wrote most about time
- William Shakespeare 175
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 133
- Thomas Carlyle 90
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 62
- Marcus Aurelius 60
- Thomas Henry Huxley 57
- Blaise Pascal 47
- Lord Byron 42
- Horace 42
- John Milton 36
- Edward Young 35
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 33