Quotations for Motivation #58 --- Time

I don’t think we can kill time. Time has a quality about it that defies killing. It is a gift to us, and we must do something with it. What we do with it is so bound up in what we are and what we become that it goes right on living in the character we develop.

Now there’s no denying that an unexpected wait is annoying when one has a busy schedule. But nothing is to be gained by giving way to the annoyance. By taking the necessary effort, we can find ways to turn these broken bits of time into something better than mere fretfulness. Look around. There may be something odd or even inspirational right in front of you. Maybe you’d have missed it if all had gone according to your schedule.

Or if your surroundings are neither interesting nor inspirational, you might try musing–cheerful musing, of course. Think of the most beautiful sight you can imagine, the sweetest sound, the most amusing story.

You may be surprised by the relaxation you can wring out of a little of big disappointment of having to wait a while.

—Gordon H. Beerworth, Coaticock Observer, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, Oct. 22, 1959.

The person who deliberately kills time is destroying every possible outlet for service on his own part and almost without exception he is hindering someone else in the race of life.

For example, you make an engagement with someone to meet you at a certain time with the purpose in mind of meeting that engagement and subsequent engagements for the day. The person is late, often out of sheer laziness and negligence. You are upset and unfitted for the engagement when the person does arrive and you are penalized for the engagements that follow.

I have observed that the person who habitually kills time soon destroys his or her usefulness in the community. Let it be said once that such and such a person is always late and that impression will travel like the wind, hurting that person through all the days.

—Louie D. Newton, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., April 22, 1936.

We humans should be as diligent in keeping books on the use of our time as we are in accounting for our income and expenditures.

With so many worthwhile and constructive uses to which our time can be put, most of them quite satisfying, we can ill afford to "kill time" and certainly there is little justification for wanting the time "to pass more quickly."

The happy person is he who finds each hour a golden opportunity, a priceless possession, a new and worthwhile experience. He looks forward to each day as a gift from the Almighty. Life is never dull--not always a picnic, not always without pain and disappointment, but nonetheless something new and wonderful.

But when it appears that life is running out, there is no disappointment, no terror. It's only as if a promotion had been announced.

—H.M. Baggarly, Tulia Herald, Tulia, Texas, Sept. 13, 1962.

Time is the great universal doctor of human ills, both spiritual and the physical.

Time trades impatient, irrational youth for maturity and wisdom. And it converts the fears and frustrations of our daily lives into courage, endurance and understanding. Without this kindly beneficent service most individuals would be lost in the early days of their youth.

Time ripens the grain in the fields and the fruit on the trees and makes them serve for the enjoyment and sustenance of man.

Time gives hotheads a chance to cool off and become rational, and it helps us to discover the great universal laws of nature, by the trial and error method, and to profit by our mistakes of judgment.

Time is an agent of mercy through which we may repent of our sins and transgressions and gain useful knowledge therefrom.

Time favors those who interpret nature's laws correctly and adapt them as guideposts to correct habits of living, but it swings heavy with penalties for those who ignore or neglect to abide by these laws.

Time is the master manipulator of the law of compensation through the operation of which everyone reaps what he sows with unerring justice.

Time is the master manipulator of the great universal law of change which keeps all people and all things in a continuous state of flux and never allows them to remain the same for two seconds in succession. This truth is a miracle of stupendous proportions because it provides the means by which we may correct our mistakes, eliminate our false fears and habits, and exchange ignorance for wisdom and peace of mind as we grow older.

If you have failed in business or in some occupational undertaking you may have observed that time came to your rescue and gave you another opportunity; perhaps a greater opportunity which caused you to express gratitude for having been diverted to another line of endeavor.

The next time you find yourself wasting a single second of this precious thing called time, you may benefit by adopting and following this resolution:

"Time is my greatest asset and I shall relate myself to it on a budget system which will help me make the most of it.

"I regard the wilful loss of any portion of my time as a sin for which I must atone by the better use of it in the future.

"Recognizing that I shall reap as I sow I shall sow only the seeds of service which may benefit others as well as myself.

"I shall so use my time in the future that each day will bring me some measure of peace of mind, in the absence of which I shall recognize that the seed I have been sowing need re-examination.

"Knowing that my habits of thought become the patterns which attract all the circumstances which affect my life through the lapse of time, I will keep my mind so busy in connection with the circumstances and things I desire that no time will be left to devote to fears, frustrations and the things I do not want.

"Finally, when my allotment of time shall have ended I hope I may leave behind me not a monument of stone, but a monument in the hearts of my fellowmen whose markings will testify that the world was made a little better by my having passed this way."

Something has speeded up the clock of time so rapidly during the first half of the present century that it has revealed to mankind more opportunities for self-improvement, and more devices to relieve man of physical labor than had existed during the entire past of man's existence.

Your share of these blessings may be embraced and used only by the way you relate yourself to time.

There is a simple test by which you may judge whether or not you have been using your time to best advantage.

If you have attained peace of mind and material security sufficient for your needs and desires your time has been properly used. If you have not attained these blessings your time has not been properly used.

—Napoleon Hill, Houston Post, Houston, Texas, Sept. 18, 1956.

Time is the raw material out of which character is made. The way a man uses his time largely determines his success.

—James Elmer Ferguson, Houston Post-Dispatch, Houston, Texas, Dec. 30, 1929.

We are not losing time when we spend it in a way that adds to the life of others. It seems to me that to waste time is to drop the spool of life's continuing thread and thus undo what we have done. The pleasure-mad dash of much of modern living is actually a way of blotting out time.

—John W. Harold, Midland Schools, Des Moines, Iowa, May 1959.

Of the many ways of wasting time, the one most often used without realizing it is that of taking an interest in non-essentials. ... The man who learns to distinguish between the things which require his attention to detail, and those which are merely interesting to him in their detail, but which do not really need so much of his personal attention, will find that he has a longer day in which to do what he needs to do. Almost every man likes to talk about what interests him, and that is where much valuable time is spent, and is one reason why many of us "never have time."

—Waldo Pondray Warren, Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Oct. 1, 1907.

A watch can kill you because it measures time in only two dimensions, when actually time has a third dimension which is of much greater importance. The third dimension might be described as the number of hours of effective good you can get from each clock hour in your day.

—William Heartsill Wilson, Beaumont Enterprise, Beaumont, Texas, Feb. 14, 1964.

What a man does with his time is an index of his character.

—Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., March 5, 1940.

The surest way of having time is by using it to the limit.

—Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., July 10, 1941.

The way we use time will determine the way we fill life.

—Roy L. Smith, Tampa Morning Tribune, Tampa, Fla., April 10, 1942.

Those who make the worst of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.

—Clifton N. Memmott, Uintah Basin Standard, Roosevelt, Utah, July 25, 1957.

Punctuality is capital stock which is sure to yield a handsome dividend. It is not only the soul of business, but it is the body and soul of success. It never waits for "something to turn up;" it drives instead of being driven, and is the mainspring of prosperity.

—S.H.B. Smith, Juvenile Instructor, Salt Lake City, Utah, Aug. 1, 1874.

Time will not wait for any of us, and the finest thing in the world is to keep pace with Time–never to lag behind in the procession.

—Frank L. Stanton, The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 15, 1909.

Those who make the worst use of their time complain the most of its shortness.

—Chinook Opinion, Chinook, Mont., March 15, 1962.

Tomorrow is a risky promissory note. Yesterday is an outlawed account. Today is real money–invest it!

—Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tenn., Nov. 9, 1923.

Lost time is buried capital.

—Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Oct. 24, 1904.

He who kills time murders opportunity and paralyzes skill and energy.

—Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Feb. 9, 1930.

Some people spend half their lives complaining about the shortness of life's span, and the other half killing time.

—Hamilton County Herald, Chattanooga, Tenn., March 7, 1958.

A man might think he is killing time, but sooner or later time puts him out of the running.

—Hamilton County Herald, Chattanooga, Tenn., March 28, 1958.

Killing time is merely burying your future.

—Idaho Statesman, Boise, Idaho, April 15, 1923.

If a man wastes time he robs himself.

—Knoxville Journal, Knoxville, Tenn., Sept. 28, 1941.

Time is money only when passed through the mint of labor.

—Louisville Herald, Louisville, Ky., March 9, 1906.

Wasted time is the most extravagant of all of life's expenditures.

—Maury Democrat, Columbia, Tenn., March 11, 1944.

Time is not an element of success; it is a space for earning it. Some men wouldn't earn success if they had eternity for their office hours.

—Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia, Pa., April 2, 1904.