Need a good quote - about "Time"

Cafe Society
1

I built a clock for my father who has cancer (in remission). They say he can live another 5 or so years.

Anyway, I built this clock, and it has an area on top that would accomodate a nice brass plaque. I’d like to engrave a brass plate with a quote that conveys “use the time you’ve got left wisely.” But I don’t want to get too morbid. (Alternative messages are also a possibility…)

I searched the poetry and quotations boards, but didn’t find anything suitable.

Can someone please recommend a good one? Even if the cite is obscure that’s ok, as long as it conveys the right message…

Thanks in advance.

2

“Carpe diem” and “Tempus fugit” are old reliables.

3

“To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under heaven.”

4

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity.

Shelley, Adonais.

5

How about “Time just keeps everything from happening at once.”

6

I would like to also recommend carpe diem. It’s quite to the point, and as an added bonus, it’s in Latin! Whoo hoo!

7

Another vote for carpe diem it was the forst thing that came to mind when I read the op.

8

Depending on how deep or flippant you want to be, there was a musical called “Time” some years back. There was a piece released from that, with Sir Laurence Olivier reciting:
“Stand before me on the sign of infinity
All you who are of the earth…”

While the whole thing definitely won’t fit on a plaque, there’s something about it I like, and maybe a line or two would suit what you’re looking for. You can read the whole thing here.

9

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

or

Wind me!

10

“Time is precious and it doesn’t return, and the monotone of the clock is LOSS, LOSS, LOSS, unless you devote your life to its opposition.”
~Tennessee Williams
Or is that too morbid?

11

“Every second is of infinite value”
–Goethe

“Life is a series of collisions with the future.”
–Jose Ortega y Gassett

12

“Time is the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.” Thoreau, Walden, Chapter II.

May you and your father enjoy much more time together.

13

As far as putting them on this specific plaque, I like 2, 3, 5, & 7. 7 would be good because instead of specifically refering to time, it simply says to be brave & what you have will be better. Hope he likes it!

  1. “To improve the golden moments of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of living.” - Samuel Johnston

  2. “Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.” –Horace

  3. “Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.” --Bernard de Fontenelle

  4. “One must learn a different… sense of time, one that depends more on small amounts than big ones.”–Sister Mary Paul

  5. “I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.”–Lord Chesterfield

  6. “Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us.”–Jean de La Bruyere

  7. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”–Anais Nin

14

Tiiiii-i-i-ime is on my side. Yes it is.

15

The sentence in bold is what I was thinking of, but the whole thing is really good, so I had to post it:

Babylon 5, by J. Michael Straczynski.

Episode “Z’ha’dum”

G’kar’s speech at the end.

16

on the lighter side…

“Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’
Into the future…”

Or

“Time flies when you’re having fun” Author Unknown
“Time’s fun when you’re having flies” Kermit T Frog
How big is the plaque, anyway?

17

On “Father Knows Best” Robert Young once said, “Time has a habit of moving forward, never backward, never motionless.”

A bit more light-hearted would be from the old TV show “The Hit Squad.”

“It’s hard to believe a half an hour has gone by when it feels like only 30 munutes.”

(I am pretty sure Kelly Monteith said it.)

TV

18

“Nae man can tether time or tide.”
–Robert Burns Tam o’ Shanter

My favorite quotation about time probably wouln’t be appropriate:

“Time goes, you say? Ah, no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.”
–Austin Dobson, The Paradox of Time (but sometimes attributed to Einstein)

19

Not exclusively about time, and a bit cliched by now, but still wonderful:

***To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

—William Blake***

20

A quote from the tv show “Angel”, episode “I will remember you.”:
Female oracle: “I like Time. There is so little and so much of it.”