Quotes About Time

The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future. It's depressing if you spend too much time reliving old joys. You think you'll never have anything as good again.

The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future. It's depressing if you spend too much time reliving the old joys. You think you'll never have anything as good again.

The peace to come gives the present no peace.

We are alive on the very brink of eternity.

To refrigerate a clock was an extremely violent act, not one I could explain to anyone.

You are as old as the woman you are feeling.

Our own slice of time is only ever betwixt and between.

Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.

The people who get nothing done often work a great deal harder. In the first place, they underestimate the time for any one task. They always expect that everything will go right. Yet, as every executive knows, nothing ever goes right. The unexpected always happens—the unexpected is indeed the only thing one can confidently expect.

The oft-repeated quip, "I'm sorry to write you a long letter, as I did not have time to write a short one," could be applied to meetings: "I'm sorry to imprison you in this long meeting, as I did not have time to prepare a short one.

The job is, however, not to set priorities. That is easy. Everybody can do it. The reason why so few executives concentrate is the difficulty of setting "posteriorities"—that is, deciding what tasks not to tackle—and of sticking to the decision.

Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here." Everyone around the table nodded assent. "Then," continued Mr. Sloan, "I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.

3. Finally, don't try to innovate for the future. Innovate for the present! An innovation may have long-range impact; it may not reach its full maturity until twenty years later.

the best definition of "what our business is, will be, and should be," will remain a pious platitude. Energy will be used up in defending yesterday. No one will have the time, resources, or will to work on exploiting today, let alone to work on making tomorrow.

Effective executives know where their time goes.

But innovation and change make inordinate time demands on the executive. All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done.

Time is also a unique resource. Of the other major resources, money is actually quite plentiful. We long ago should have learned that it is the demand for capital, rather than the supply thereof, which sets the limit to economic growth and activity. People—the third limiting resource—one can hire, though one can rarely hire enough good people. But one cannot rent, hire, buy, or otherwise obtain more time. The

The effective executive therefore knows that he has to consolidate his discretionary time. He knows that he needs large chunks of time and that small driblets are no time at all. Even one quarter of the working day, if consolidated in large time units, is usually enough to get the important things done. But even three quarters of the working day are useless if they are only available as fifteen minutes here or half an hour there.

And then I realize that maybe not so much has changed as we all thought, that maybe the whole idea of progress is a paradox, a rocking horse that goes forward and back, forward and back, but stays in the same place, giving only the comforting illusion of motion.

Por contra, me explicaba mi hermano, el tiempo que media entre el despertar y el momento en que el que está acostado es dueño de su razón es un tiempo peligroso, es un mal tiempo, es el tiempo del arrepentimiento que hace encoger de vergüenza, el tiempo del sudor, dijo él, el tiempo de la verdad, el tiempo claro, el tiempo de la era glacial, tiempo de guerra, dijo él, es el destiempo.

El tiempo se me va de las manos y estoy furioso por la apatía de mis miembros. Y de la furia estoy a punto de perder el conocimiento.

Él piensa sobre sí mismo como si se tratara de otro; piensa sobre lo que le sucede, cuando sucede, como si ya hace mucho tiempo le hubiera sucedido a otro; y, a veces, piensa sobre uno al que ya hace mucho tiempo le sucedió algo como si fuera uno al que todavía le ha de suceder algo. Una vez él se quedó ciego.

En noviembre, a esta hora ya está tan oscuro que uno no puede ver ni la mano que tiene delante; él tampoco puede verse la mano que tiene ante sus ojos

Both sides are too strong for a finish yet. God knows how long it will be at this rate. None of us will ever see its end and children still at school will have to take over.27