Quotes about time
261 quotes from 169 people
Walter Scott1771–1832The Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto III, stanza 1.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Tragedy of Irene (1749), Act III, Sc. 2
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 8Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74eWhat fools call “wasting time” is most often the best investment.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 24There is no present or future — only the past happening over and over again — now.
Eugene O'Neill1888–1953A Moon for the Misbegotten (1952), Act 3The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
Thomas Fuller1608–1661The Holy State and the Profane State (1642), Of TombsPeople ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it.
Ray Bradbury1920–2012Beyond 1984: The People Machines (1979)Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases.
Stephen Hawking1942–2018A Brief History of Time (1988), p. 147Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.
Hippocrates460–370 BCPrecepts, Ch. 1, as translated by W. H. S. Jones (1923).
Miyamoto Musashi1584–1645Go Rin No Sho (1645), “The Ground Book”
Thomas Pynchonborn 1937Against the Day (2006), p. 622
Robert Graves1895–1985“Sick Love,” lines 7–12, from Poems 1929
Thomas Mann1875–1955The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 1
Rachel Carson1907–1964Silent Spring (1962)