It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
Time
The fullest shelf, which tells you something. Half of these were copied out late, which tells you the rest.
While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, I
He tells Lucilius to hold every hour in his grasp. I have never once managed a whole afternoon.
Confine thyself to the present.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VII
Three words. I have read whole books that were only footnotes to them.
Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. While it is in thy power, be good.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack
Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next.
Horace, Odes, I.11
The famous half is carpe diem. The instructive half is the distrust of tomorrow that follows it.
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Emerson, The American Scholar