It passes on just like this, not ceasing day or night!
Our note: Said by Confucius as he stood beside a stream.
Verified in the full text of The Analects on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #3330
Quotes about time
41 verified quotes from 27 writers, c. 475 BC to 1925.
Quotes 1 to 21 of 41, page 1 of 2.
How to spend the hours you have is one of the oldest themes in writing. Marcus Aurelius tells himself not to act as if he had ten thousand years; Franklin’s rule was to lose no time; Thoreau turns time into a stream he goes fishing in.
Shakespeare gives time its stages and its tides, Dickens opens A Tale of Two Cities with the best and worst of times, and Lewis Carroll’s White Queen offers jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today. Each quote below was found word for word in the full text of a named public-domain edition.
What “verified” means, and what we leave out: How we verify.
Confucius, The Analects, c. 475 BCTranslated by James Legge (1861) …we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many
Cephalus, in The Republic by Plato, c. 375 BCTranslated by Benjamin Jowett (1871) Our note: An old man in the opening of the Republic describes what he found in old age, quoting Sophocles.
Verified in the full text of The Republic on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #1497
Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them, if it shall be necessary, having with thee the same reason which now thou usest for present things.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, c. AD 180Translated by George Long (1862) Our note: Book VII, on not worrying about the future.
Verified in the full text of Meditations on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #15877 · Collected in The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, c. AD 180Translated by George Long (1862) Our note: Book IV.
Verified in the full text of Meditations on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #15877 · Collected in The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
…every man lives only this present time, which is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past or it is uncertain.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, c. AD 180Translated by George Long (1862) Our note: Book III, on living in the present moment.
Verified in the full text of Meditations on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #15877 · Collected in The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on
Omar Khayyam, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, c. AD 1120Translated by Edward FitzGerald (1859) Our note: One of the best-known quatrains in Edward FitzGerald's free English version of the Persian verses.
Verified in the full text of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #246
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, …
Jaques, in As You Like It by William Shakespeare, 1623 Our note: The start of Jaques's speech on the seven ages of a life.
Verified in the full text of As You Like It on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: A Musician and His Daughter, Thomas de Keyser, 1629
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; …
Brutus, in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, 1623 Our note: Brutus argues for acting while the moment is right.
Verified in the full text of Julius Caesar on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, Anthony van Dyck, 1624
We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
Prospero, in The Tempest by William Shakespeare, 1623 Our note: Prospero ends the magical show he has staged for the young lovers.
Verified in the full text of The Tempest on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill, Pieter Claesz, 1628
Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1791 Our note: Franklin's note on "Industry," one of his thirteen virtues.
Verified in the full text of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #148
Painted the same decade: Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747–1800), Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), 1792
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
Elizabeth Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813 Our note: Elizabeth to Mr. Darcy near the end of the novel.
Verified in the full text of Pride and Prejudice on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #1342
Painted the same decade: Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct, Théodore Géricault, 1818
To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836 Our note: From the chapter "Beauty" in "Nature."
Verified in the full text of Nature on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #29433
Painted the same decade: Parochialstrasse in Berlin, Eduard Gaertner, 1831
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, 1838 Our note: The best-known verse of Longfellow's early poem answering a gloomy view of life.
Verified in the full text of A Psalm of Life on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #78406 · Collected in The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Painted the same decade: Hagar in the Wilderness, Camille Corot, 1835
…no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused
Jacob Marley's ghost, in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843 Our note: Marley's ghost warns Scrooge about a life spent only on business.
Verified in the full text of A Christmas Carol on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #46
Painted the same decade: The Abduction of Rebecca, Eugène Delacroix, 1846
To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience, 1844 Our note: From the essay "Experience."
Verified in the full text of Experience on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2945 · Collected in Essays, Second Series
Painted the same decade: Study of a Female Nude, Henri Lehmann, 1840
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
Lockwood, in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, 1847 Our note: The novel's last sentence, a calm look at the three graves on the moor.
Verified in the full text of Wuthering Heights on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #768
Painted the same decade: The Abduction of Rebecca, Eugène Delacroix, 1846
My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!
Mr. Micawber, in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, 1850 Our note: Mr. Micawber's advice to young David.
Verified in the full text of David Copperfield on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #766
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854 Our note: Thoreau compares time to the shallow stream he fishes in, while eternity lies deeper.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
…the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854 Our note: Thoreau's definition of cost, from the chapter "Economy."
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, …
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859 Our note: The opening of the novel, set in London and Paris during the French Revolution.
Verified in the full text of A Tale of Two Cities on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #98
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860 Our note: The narrator on how early years in one place bind us to the world.
Verified in the full text of The Mill on the Floss on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #6688
Painted the same decade: The Third-Class Carriage, Honoré Daumier, 1864