The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate¹ to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), Annual message to Congress, December 1, 1862

All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.

Baltasar Gracian

An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth.

Bonnie Friedman, in New York Times

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)

Calendars are for careful people, not passionate² ones.

Chuck Sigars, The World According to Chuck weblog, September 8, 2003

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death.

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, 'A Woman of Independent Means'

All my possessions for a moment of time.

Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603)

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.

Franklin P. Jones

When people go through something rough in life, they say, "I'm taking it one day at a time." Yes, so is everybody. Because that's how time works.

Hannibal Buress

Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated³ to by a watch.

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817), Mansfield Park

If time flies when you're having fun, it hits the afterburners when you don't think you're having enough.

Jef Mallett, Frazz, 08-01-05

Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.

Jim Bishop⁴

The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity⁵ for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'

John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch⁶.

John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

It seemed like forever ago, like we’d had this brief but still infinite forever. Some infinities⁷ are bigger than other infinities.

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable⁸ of all our possessions.

John Randolph (1773 - 1833)

Our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves what shall be true for the future.

John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

There is never enough time, unless you're serving it.

Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)

If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.

Maria Edgeworth, O Magazine, April 2004

Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.

Mason Cooley, O Magazine, April 2004

Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.

Max Frisch

What very mysterious things days were. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There's quite a lot we don't know about them.

Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been, 2010

So little time and so little to do.

Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972)

A single day is enough to make us a little larger.

Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.

Plutarch (46 AD - 120 AD)

These times of ours are series and full of calamity⁹, but all times are essentially¹⁰ alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882), Public and Private Education, November 27, 1864

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)