SenecaSourced
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
Source: Letters to Lucilius 1, tr. R. M. Gummere
Checked quotes about time
18 quotes with a known source.
SenecaSourced
It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.
Source: On the Shortness of Life 1, tr. J. W. Basore
AristotleSourced
One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
Source: Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, ch. 7, tr. W. D. Ross
Leo TolstoySourced
The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
Source: War and Peace, Book 10 (1869) — said by General Kutuzov
HeraclitusAttributed
You cannot step twice into the same river.
Plato's paraphrase; Heraclitus' own fragment (B12) speaks of different waters flowing over those who step into the same rivers.
Source: Reported by Plato, Cratylus 402a
OvidSourced
Dripping water hollows out stone.
Source: Epistulae ex Ponto IV.10.5 ("Gutta cavat lapidem")
HoraceSourced
Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow.
Source: Odes I.11 ("Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero")
VirgilSourced
Time flies, never to be regained.
Source: Georgics III.284 ("Fugit inreparabile tempus")
George SantayanaSourced
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Often credited to Burke or Churchill.
Source: The Life of Reason, vol. 1 (1905)
Søren KierkegaardSourced
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Source: Journals (1843)
Charles DarwinSourced
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
Source: Letter to his sister Susan Darwin (1836)
Charles DickensSourced
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Source: A Tale of Two Cities, opening line (1859)
Lewis CarrollSourced
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, ch. 10 (1865)
Henry FordSourced
History is more or less bunk.
Source: Interview, Chicago Tribune (25 May 1916)
F. Scott FitzgeraldSourced
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Source: The Great Gatsby, final line (1925)
J. R. R. TolkienSourced
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Source: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, ch. 2 (1954) — Gandalf
Steve JobsSourced
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Source: Stanford commencement address (12 June 2005)
HippocratesSourced
Life is short, the art long.
Source: Aphorisms I.1 ("Ars longa, vita brevis" in Latin)
Famous, but not theirs
Quotes about time that are usually credited to the wrong person.
Mark TwainNot theirs
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Actually: The earliest known appearance is a 1970 poem by John Robert Colombo — sixty years after Twain's death.
George Bernard ShawNo source found
Youth is wasted on the young.
The trail: Constantly credited to Shaw, but no one has found it in his work.
Franz KafkaNo source found
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
The trail: Comes from Gustav Janouch's Conversations with Kafka, a memoir scholars treat with heavy caution.
Karl MarxMisquoted
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
The real words: From The Eighteenth Brumaire (1852), where Marx says Hegel forgot to add that great events happen twice: "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
Nikola TeslaNo source found
The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.
The trail: Widely quoted, but no original publication has been located.