Quotes about time
261 quotes from 169 people
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol’n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
John Milton1608–1674On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-three (1631)
Miyamoto Musashi1584–1645Go Rin No Sho (1645), “The Ground Book”If a schedule is long, it’s wrong. If it’s tight, it’s right.
Elon Muskborn 1971“Starship Update” talk at the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas on September 28, 2019, During Q&A at the “Starship Update” presentationThere is no present or future — only the past happening over and over again — now.
Eugene O'Neill1888–1953A Moon for the Misbegotten (1952), Act 3Don’t shortchange the future, because of fear in the present.
Barack Obamaborn 1961News conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, London (1 April 2009)He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.
Ovid43 BC–AD 17Metamorphoses (Transformations), Book XV, 234
Thomas Paine1737–1809Common Sense, First published 10 January 1776, the most commonly reproduced edition is the third, published on 14 February 1776In contextTime passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.
Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.
Marcel Proust1871–1922Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. I: “Madame Swann at Home”
