Time

THE TIME you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

A.E.Housman – To an Athlete Dying Young

In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life.

(Marcel Proust)

Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.

(Aristotle)

Shakespeare Sonnet-a-Day



XIX.

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

Time is an illusion. Take one instant. Freeze it. How does it connect to the next? What is the smallest increment of time? Death is simply stopping at one instant and not proceeding to the next. You stay forever at the instant between life and death.

An inch of time cannot be bought with an inch of gold.

(Chinese Proverb)

Time itself seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace the melancholy night.

Time as he grows old teaches all things.

(Aeschylus)

You may delay, but time will not.

(Benjamin Franklin)

Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

Time left me one day, and when it did it told me not to be frightened that it would be back if I asked. You see it wasn't feeling appreciated by me, it said it was tired of being there when all people wanted was more, more, more. At first I felt empowered to change my surroundings, without time I could fix all my problems. Then crying to myself, no time later at all, I realized I couldn't measure myself against infinity. I begged time to return, that I was happy with it when it was here. I said I would never complain about not there being enough and like warm rain, time came back to engulf me, and rescue me from oblivion. I told time that I was glad he was back, and that as much as he was here is all of him I'd need.

The dark-haired stranger knew how to bide his time.

Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.

(Euripides)

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.

(Theophrastus)