Time is all you have. Master your time and you master your life. Time management is one of those wonderful, timeless topics with so many lessons and so many great mentors.
To get a better view on time management, we can first “stand on the shoulder’s of giants.”
To do so, let’s take a stroll through some words of wisdom from our sages of the ages.
While organizing my quotes collection, I gained more clarity on the simple, but powerful lessons of time.
I was able to distill the wisdom of the ages into a handful of lessons to help you master time: Time is what you make of it.
You don’t have time, you make it.
It’s your most valuable resource. Invest time. Investing in your time is investing in your life.
Don’t dwell on the train you missed. Catch the next train.
Time changes what’s important. You can’t buy time. Time is all we have.
Time is a teacher. Time is a judge. Time is a healer. Time is a friend.
Top 10 Quotes on Time Management
I had a tough time picking the best 10 time management quotes. There are so many great quotes.
That said, here are my top 10 best time management quotes:
- “Time and I against any two.“ – Baltasar Gracian
- “Time is a great healer, but a poor beautician.“ – Lucille S. Harper
- “He that rises late must trot all day.“ – Benjamin Franklin
- “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that is why they call it the present.“ – Kung Fu Panda
- “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute — then it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity!“ – Albert Einstein
- “Time stays long enough for those who use it.“ – Leonardo Da Vinci
- “A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.“ – Charles Dickens
- “Time is the rider that breaks youth.“ – George Herbert
- “No man goes before his time — unless the boss leaves early“. – Groucho Marx
- “Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.“ – Daniel J. Boorstin
I want to throw in another quote that one of my mentors shares with me to help keep time in perspective.
It goes a little something like this: “Live each day, as if it’s your last, but plan to live 100 years.”
Change and Time
Time as a powerful change agent:
“Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.“
— Faith Baldwin
“Seasons change.“
– Unknown
“Time cuts down all, both great and small.“
– Unknown
“One can always trust to time. Insert a wedge of time and nearly everything straightens itself out.“
— Norman Douglas
“Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.“
– – George Bernard Shaw
“Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, adorer of the ruin, comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled… Time, the avenger! “
— Lord Byron
Focus and Priorities
Time is a great forcing function and a great tool to help you prioritize:
“To do two things at once is to do neither.“
— Publius Syrus
“People always make time to do the things they really want to do.“
– Anonymous
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
— Samuel Johnson
“Is what I’m doing or about to do getting us closer to our objective?“
— Robert Townsend
“What comes first, the compass or the clock? Before one can truly manage time (the clock), it is important to know where you are going, what your priorities and goals are, in which direction you are headed (the compass). Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Rather than always focusing on what’s urgent, learn to focus on what is really important.“
– Unknown
“We realize our dilemma goes deeper than shortage of time; it is basically a problem of priorities. We confess, we have left undone those things that ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.“
— Charles E. Hummel
“One of the greatest resources people cannot mobilize themselves is that they try to accomplish great things. Most worthwhile achievements are the result of many little things done in a single direction.“
— Nido Qubein
“Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance.“
— Leo Buscaglia
“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out the plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.“
— Victor Hugo
“Review our priorities, ask the question; what’s the best use of our time right now?“
– – Alan Lakein
“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.“
— Lee Iacocca
“The idea is to make decisions and act on them — to decide what is important to accomplish, to decide how something can best be accomplished, to find time to work at it and to get it done.“
— Karen Kakascik
“Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.“
– – Richard Ben Sapir
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?“
— Henry David Thoreau
“In all planning you make a list and you set priorities.“
— Alan Lakein
Future
The future. It’s always just beyond our reach:
“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.“
– – C. S. Lewis
“Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.“
— Dean Acheson
“City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind’s eye the notion of a better life ahead.“
— Edward Hoagland
“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.“
— Winston Churchill
Judgment and Time
Time is a Judge. Things that stand the test of time, pass the greatest test: :
“Time is the only critic without ambition.“
— John Steinbeck
“Time is the fairest and toughest judge.“
– – Edgar Quinet
“Time, whose tooth gnaws away at everything else, is powerless against truth.“
— Thomas Huxley
“Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.“
– Euripides
Lost Time
You don’t get it back:
“What a folly it is to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.“
— John Howe
“One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time.“
– Unknown
“Lost time is never found again.“
– Proverb
“He lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived but lost.“
— Thomas Fuller
“For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.“
– – Doug Larson
“Lost time is never found again.“
– Proverb
“For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.“
— Doug Larson
Making and Saving Time
The myths and truths of making and saving time:
“You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.“
— Charles Bixton
“To choose time is to save time.“
— Francis Bacon
“In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.“
— Sir John Lubbock
“You love what you find time to do.“
– Unknown
“To save time is to lengthen life.“
– Unknown
“I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.“
– – Oscar Wilde
“He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.“
— Oscar Wilde
Mastering Time
Master your time, to master your life:
“Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!“
— Tony Robbins
“Time = life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.“
— Alan Lakein
“I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.“
— Golda Meir
“He who lets time rule him will live the life of a slave.“
– – John Arthorne
“A man must be master of his hours and days, not their servant.“
— William Frederick Book
“For tribal man space was the uncontrollable mystery. For technological man it is time that occupies the same role.“
— Marshall Mcluhan
“The clock has decided to take time into its own hands.“
– Anynomous
“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.“
— Peter F. Drucker
Money and Time
Time is money. Money is time. Don’t spend it all in one place:
“Time is money.“
— Benjamin Franklin
“Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.“
– – George Robert Gissing
“Time will take your money, but money won’t buy time.“
— James Taylor
“An inch of time cannot be bought with an inch of gold.“
– Proverb
“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.“
— Louis Agassiz
“Money, I can only gain or lose. But time I can only lose. So, I must spend it carefully.“
— Unknown
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.“
— Carl Sandburg
“The supply of time is a daily miracle. You wake up in the morning and lo! Your purse is magnificently filled with 24 hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of life. It is yours! The most precious of your possessions.“
— Arnold Bennet
Moments in Time
Savor your moments. They add up to a life time::
“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.“
— Rabindranath Tagore
“One must learn a different sense of time, one that depends more on small amounts than big ones.“
— Sister Mary Paul
“You’re writing the story of your life one moment at a time.“
— Doc Childre and Howard Martin
“But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.”
— Benjamin Disraeli
“One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.“
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.“
— James M. Barrie
“To get all there is out of living, we must employ our time wisely, never being in too much of a hurry to stop and sip life, but never losing our sense of the enormous value of a minute.“
— Robert Updefraff
“The infinite is in the finite of every instant.“
– Unknown
“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.“
— William Faulkner
“A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.“
— John B. Priestly
“Flow in the living moment. — We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.“
– Bruce Lee
“The moment is freedom. — I couldn’t live by a rigid schedule. I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them.“
– – Bruce Lee
“The timeless moment. — The ‘moment’ has no yesterday or tomorrow. It is not the result of thought and therefore has no time.“
– Bruce Lee
Now and In the Moment
There’s a lot to be said for be here, now:
“Now is the watchword of the wise.“
– Proverb
“It’s how we spend our time here and now, that really matters. If you are fed up with the way you have come to interact with time, change it.“
– – Marcia Wieder
“I don’t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.”
— W. Somerset Maugham
“Realize that now, in this moment of time, you are creating. You are creating your next moment. That is what’s real.“
— Sara Paddison
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.“
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Make a good use of the present.“
– Horace
“Be intent on the perfection of the present day.“
— William Law
“A better present makes for a good past and future.“
— Kazi Shams
“Never let yesterday use up today.“
— Richard H. Nelson
“One day at a time–this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.“
– Unknown
“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.“
– Proverb
“The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.“
– Seneca
“The infinite is in the finite of every instant.“
– Unknown
Procrastination
Why do today, what you can put off to tomorrow? … or the day after. Procrastination is a great way to avoid getting things done:
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.“
– Bruce Lee
“The surest way to be late is to have plenty of time.“
— Leo Kennedy
“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.“
— Eva Young
“A year from now you will wish you had started today.“
— Karen Lamb
“You may delay, but time will not.“
– – Benjamin Franklin
“Never leave ’till tomorrow which you can do today.“
— Benjamin Franklin
“What may be done at any time will be done at no time.“
– Proverb
“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.“
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.“
— Carl Sandburg
“You may delay, but time will not.“
— Benjamin Franklin
“Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late.“
— William Shakespeare
“Procrastination is the thief of time.“
— Joseph Heller
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.“
— Napolean Hill
“When the time is right, you just got to do it.“
— Jack Simplot
Productivity and Managing Your Time
Time is always a key factor in your productivity. The best time management quotes on productivity:
“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.“
— Henry Ward Beecher
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.“
— Bruce Lee
“Make measurable progress in reasonable time.“
— Jim Rohn
“One realizes the full importance of time only when there is little of it left. Every man’s greatest capital asset is his unexpired years of productive life.“
– – P. W. Litchfield
“There’s never enough time to do it right, but there’s always enough time to do it over.”
— Jack Bergman
“The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.“
— Lord Chesterfield
“So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.“
– – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What do you want to get done? In what order of importance? Over what period of time? What is the time available? What is the best strategy for application of time to projects for the most effective results?“
— Ted W. Engstrom
“Anything that is wasted effort represents wasted time. The best management of our time thus becomes linked inseparably with the best utilization of our efforts.“
– – Ted W. Engstrom
“I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.“
— Ian Fleming
“If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.“
— Anthony J. D’Angelo
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.“
— Bruce Lee
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.“
— Bruce Lee
“If you haven’t got the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over?“
— Jeffery J. Mayer
“People who never have any time on their hands are those who do the least.“
– – George C. Lichtenberg
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.“
— Samuel Levenson
“One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.“
— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“We never shall have any more time we have, and we have always had, all the time there is.“
– – Thomas A. Bennett
Spending Time
It’s not what you’ve got. It’s how you spend it. The best time management quotes on spending time:
“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.“
— Stephen Covey
“Life is half spent before one knows what it is.“
– Proverb
“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.“
— Will Rogers
“We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.“
– – John F. Kennedy
“Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.“
— Lord Chesterfield
“The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.“
— Mike Murdock
“People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness.”
— John Wanamaker
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.“
– – Henry David Thoreau
“Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go.“
— Josh Billings
“Time is not measured by the passing of years, but by what one does, what one feels and what one achieves.“
— Jawaharlal Nehru
“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 not.“
— Henry Van Dyke
“Take care in your minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.“
— Lord Chesterfield
“When we are doing what we love, we don’t care about time. For at least at that moment, time doesn’t exist and we are truly free.“
— Wieder Marcia
“We must use time creatively — and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.“
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing.“
— Thomas Jefferson
“Ordinary people think merely of spending time. Great people think of using it.“
– Unknown
“When men are not regretting that life is so short, they are doing something to kill time.“
— Edgar Watson Howe
“Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.“
— Charles Caleb Colton
“The best thing to spend on your children is your time.“
— Louise Hart
“When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.“
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.“
— David Norris
Success and Time
Successful people make time work for them. The best time management quotes on success:
“Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well arranged mind.”
– Pitman
“Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.“
— Charles De Montesquiu
“The great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words: I did not have time.“
— Franklin Field
“Set priorities for your goals. A major part of successful living lies in the ability to put first things first. Indeed, the reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first.“
– – Robert J. Mckain
“One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.“
— Malcolm S. Forbes
“A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.“
— Baltasar Gracian
“The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.“
– Arthur Shoppenhauer
“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.“
– – Arnold H. Glasgow
“Time is the most precious element of human existence. The successful person knows how to put energy into time and how to draw success from time.“
— Denis Waitley
“Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time wasted in disapproving of others.“
– Unknown
“Time spent in getting even would be better spent in getting ahead.“
– Unknown
“Monday is the key day of the week.“
– Proverb
“Why kill time when one can employ it.“
– Proverb
The Passing of Time
As one of my teachers used to say, “Time passes, will you?” Time Flies. It can also come to a standstill. Perspective changes everything:
“This too shall pass.“
– Unknown.
“Time stays, we go.“
— H.L. Mencken
“Time and tide wait for no man.“
— Geoffrey Chaucer
“The passage of time is simply an illusion created by our brains.“
— A.M.W. Ball
“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.“
— Jean Paul
“But at my back I always hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near.“
— Andrew Marvell
“Time goes, you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays, we go.“
— Henry Austin Dobson
“Everything in this life takes longer than you think except life itself.“
– Unknown
“Love makes time pass away and time makes love pass away.“
– Proverb
“Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.“
— Marcus T. Cicero
“We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.“
— Henry Ward Beecher
“Nothing is swifter than our years.“
– Ovid
“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.“
– – William Faulkner
“For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.“
– – Doug Larson
The Past
The past is always behind us, and nothing beats 20/20 hindsight:
“You can never plan the future by the past.“
— Edmund Burke
“What is human life? The first third a good time; the rest remembering about it.“
— Mark Twain
“Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. In is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and a manly heart.“
– – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Nothing is improbable until it moves into the past tense.“
— George Ade
“It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.“
— Jim Bishop
The Value of Time
Value is in the eye of the beholder. The best time management quotes on the value of time:
“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.“
— Laertius Diogenes
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.“
– Bruce Lee
“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.“
– Bruce Lee
“Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.“
— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.“
— M. Scott Peck
“A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.“
— Charles Darwin
“Your greatest asset is your earning ability. Your greatest resource is your time.“
— Brian Tracy
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.“
— Charles Richards
“If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the calendar, and remark, there goes another day of my life, never to return, you will become time conscious.“
— A.B. Zu Tavern
“Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.”
— Thomas Edison
“All my possessions for a moment of time.“
— Queen Elizabeth
“Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.“
— John Randolph
“Everything requires time. It is the only truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.“
— Peter F. Drucker
“Time is the scarcest resource of the manager; If it is not managed, nothing else can be managed.“
— Peter F. Drucker
Time as a Healer
Time is a healer. The best time management quotes on time as a healer:
“Time heals all wounds, unless you pick at them.“
— Shawn Alexander
“He that lacks the time to mourn, lacks time to mend.“
– Unknown
“Time is the glue that bonds a broken heart, but love is the air which dries the glue.“
— J. Franklin
Time as a Teacher
Time as a Teacher:
“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.“
— Hector Louis Briloz
“Time as he grows old teaches many lessons. – Aeschylus Time is the wisest counselor of all.”
– Pericles
“Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn.“
— Delmore Schwartz
“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.“
– Rodin
“Time is the wisest of all counselors.“
– Plutarch
Wasting Time
Waste not, want not. Of all your things to waste, wasting time should be your last choice. The best time management quotes on wasting time:
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.“
– – Henry Ford
“Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.“
– – Art Buchwald
“You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.“
– – Henry David Thoreau
“We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. – Octavio Paz The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.“
— Bertrand Russell
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.“
— William Penn
“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.“
— Laertius Diogenes
“All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.“
– – Baltasar Gracian
I hope you’ve enjoyed this round up of time management quotes. Time really is a one of our most important resources and time management is a great focus for skilled living.
Mastering your time is something you can work at each day.
In fact, every moment is a new chance to apply the lessons above. For example, the next time you tell yourself you don’t have time, remind yourself that you don’t have time, you make time.
Feel free to share your favorite time managements quotes in the comments section below. One of the ways to find some of your favorite time management quotes is to ask, what are the saying that actually shaped how you deal with time? (for example, for many people, there’s no time like the present, while for others, there’s always tomorrow.)
