Time 

1. Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
   Douglas Adams 1952–2001 English science fiction writer: The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) ch. 2
2. Time is a violent torrent; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.
   Marcus Aurelius ad 121–180 Roman emperor from ad 161: Meditations bk. 4, sect. 43; see Heraclitus
3. Every instant of time is a pinprick of eternity.
   Marcus Aurelius ad 121–180 Roman emperor from ad 161: Meditations bk. 6, sect. 36
4. Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by.
   Matsuo Basho 1644–94 Japanese poet: The Narrow Road to the Deep North, tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa
5. vladimir: That passed the time.
   estragon: It would have passed in any case.
   vladimir: Yes, but not so rapidly.
   
   Samuel Beckett 1906–89 Irish dramatist, novelist, and poet: Waiting for Godot (1955) act 1
6. Time is a great teacher but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
   Hector Berlioz 1803–69 French composer: attributed; in Almanach des lettres françaises et étrangères (1924) 11 May
7. I [Krishna] am all-powerful Time which destroys all things, and I have come here to slay these men. Even if thou does not fight, all the warriors facing thee shall die.
   
    
   Bhagavadgita Hindu poem composed between the 2nd century bc and the 2nd century ad and incorporated into the Mahabharata: ch. 11, v. 32, tr. J. Mascaro; see Oppenheimer
8. Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.
   Dion Boucicault 1820–90 Irish dramatist: London Assurance (1841) act 2, sc. 1
9. He said, ‘What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
   Man has Forever.’
   
    
   Robert Browning 1812–89 English poet: ‘A Grammarian's Funeral’ (1855)
10. I recommend to you to take care of minutes: for hours will take care of themselves.
    Lord Chesterfield 1694–1773 English writer and politician: Letters to his Son (1774) 6 November 1747; see Lowndes
11. Time is the great physician.
    Benjamin Disraeli 1804–81 British Tory statesman and novelist; Prime Minister 1868, 1874–80: Henrietta Temple (1837)
12. Time goes, you say? Ah no!
    Alas, Time stays, we go.
    
     
    Henry Austin Dobson 1840–1921 English poet, biographer, and essayist: ‘The Paradox of Time’ (1877)
13. We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories. And those that carry us forward are dreams.
    David Duncan and John Logan screenwriters: The Time Machine (2002 film) based on the novel by H. G. Wells, spoken by Jeremy Irons as Übermorlock
14. I shall use the phrase ‘time's arrow’ to express this one-way property of time which has no analogue in space.
    Arthur Eddington 1882–1944 British astrophysicist: The Nature of the Physical World (1928) ch. 4
15. The distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent.
    Albert Einstein 1879–1955 German-born theoretical physicist: letter to Michelangelo Besso, 21 March 1955
16. Time present and time past
    Are both perhaps present in time future,
    And time future contained in time past.
    
     
    T. S. Eliot 1888–1965 American-born British poet, critic, and dramatist: Four Quartets ‘Burnt Norton’ (1936) pt. 1
17. There is no past present or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water.
    Janet Frame 1924–2004 New Zealand writer: Faces in the Water (1961) ch. 4
18. Remember that time is money.
    Benjamin Franklin 1706–90 American politician, inventor, and scientist: Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748)
19. Time is…Time was…Time is past.
    Robert Greene c.1560–92 English poet and dramatist: Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594)
20. Time, you old gipsy man,
    Will you not stay,
    Put up your caravan
    Just for one day?
    
     
    Ralph Hodgson 1871–1962 English poet: ‘Time, You Old Gipsy Man’ (1917)
21. He that runs against Time has an antagonist not subject to casualties.
    Samuel Johnson 1709–84 English poet, critic, and lexicographer: Lives of the English Poets (1779–81) ‘Pope’
22. Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
    Horace Mann 1796–1859 American educationist: ‘Lost, Two Golden Hours’ in Common School Journal November 1844
23. Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
    Thomas Mann 1875–1955 German novelist: The Magic Mountain (1924) ch. 7 (tr. H. T. Lowe-Porter)
24. But at my back I always hear
    Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near:
    And yonder all before us lie
    Deserts of vast eternity.
    
     
    Andrew Marvell 1621–78 English poet: ‘To His Coy Mistress’ (1681) l. 21; see Eliot
25. I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.
    Golda Meir 1898–1978 Israeli stateswoman, Prime Minister 1969–74: interview in Jerusalem by Oriana Fallaci, November 1972, in Fallaci Ms. Magazine 1973 vol. 1
26. Tempus edax rerum.
    
     
    Time the devourer of everything.
    Ovid 43 bc–c.ad 17 Roman poet: Metamorphoses bk. 15, l. 234
27. Wait for the wisest of all counsellors, Time.
    Pericles c.495–429 bc Greek statesman and Athenian general: Plutarch Parallel Lives ‘Pericles’
28. Even such is Time, which takes in trust
    Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
    And pays us but with age and dust;
    Who in the dark and silent grave,
    When we have wandered all our ways,
    Shuts up the story of our days:
    And from which earth, and grave, and dust,
    The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
    
     
    Walter Ralegh c.1552–1618 English explorer and courtier: written the night before his death, and found in his Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster
29. Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
    Will Rogers 1879–1935 American actor and humorist: letter in New York Times 29 April 1930
30. Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
    Jean-Paul Sartre 1905–80 French philosopher, novelist, dramatist, and critic: Nausea (1938)
31. Ah! the clock is always slow;
    It is later than you think.
    
     
    Robert W. Service 1874–1958 Canadian poet: ‘It Is Later Than You Think’ (1921)
32. She should have died hereafter;
    There would have been a time for such a word,
    To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
    And then is heard no more; it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.
    
     
    William Shakespeare 1564–1616 English dramatist: Macbeth (1606) act 5, sc. 5, l. 16 (Oxford Standard Authors ed.)
33. As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
    Henry David Thoreau 1817–62 American writer: Walden (1854) ‘Economy’
34. Time is
    Too slow for those who wait,
    Too swift for those who fear,
    Too long for those who grieve,
    Too short for those who rejoice;
    But for those who love,
    Time is eternity.
    
     
    Henry Van Dyke 1852–1933 American Presbyterian minister and writer: ‘Time is too slow for those who wait’ (1905), read at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales; Nigel Rees in ‘Quote…Unquote’ October 1997 notes that the original form of the last line is ‘Time is not’
35. Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus.
    
     
    But meanwhile it is flying, irretrievable time is flying.
    usually quoted as ‘tempus fugit [time flies]’
    Virgil 70–19 bc Roman poet: Georgics no. 3, l. 284
36. The years like great black oxen tread the world,
    And God the herdsman goads them on behind,
    And I am broken by their passing feet.
    
     
    W. B. Yeats 1865–1939 Irish poet: The Countess Cathleen (1895)