My favorite quotes about time

Last Updated on 29/04/2025

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In this post, you will find my favorite quotes about time that, if it really exists, try to explain what it is and how to perceive it or deal with it.

There are many definitions and categories of time. Standard, local, universal, cosmic, linear, circular, spiral, absolute, residual, retarded, proper, historical, ancient, and modern. Sciences, like physics, still have questions about time unanswered and we can’t have a common perception of it.

Moreover, there is the division of time into objective and subjective. According to Zakay & Hornic (1991), subjective time is influenced by thoughts, feelings, memories, and expectations of activities. In other words, the duration of an experience can be perceived differently by each of us. And, this perception is unique, like our fingertips (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2012). 

According to Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd in their book, The Time Paradox: Using the new psychology of time for your advantage, the way we perceive time looks like the way fishes may “understand” water. Its presence is perceived by its absence. What an excellent metaphor! James Joyce expressed the same notion in his book A portrait of the artist as a young man. He said that absence is the highest form of presence.

So, it seems that it’s alright to understand time as we want or, at least, as our brain can perceive it. It’s like all other characteristics and preferences that we have. And, I guess that’s why we have so many contradictive quotes about time. You can discover my favorite quotes below.

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My favorite quotes about time

“Time is an illusion.”

– Albert Einstein

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien

“What then is time? If nobody asks me, I know; but if I were desirous to explain it to one that should ask me, plainly I do not know.”           

– St. Augustine

“Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.”

– Milan Kundera

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Life is too short to waste your time on people who don’t respect, appreciate, and value you.”

–  Roy T. Bennett

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”

– Hermann Hesse

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”

– Tennessee Williams

“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.”

– Lao Tzu

“Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”

– Jean-Paul Sartre

“Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.”

– Ray Cummings

“Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.”

 – Hans Christian Andersen

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”

– Leo Tolstoy

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