Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!

Each day is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to Him.

Time becomes a means to an end, not moments in which to enjoy God or pay attention to others.

Then occupation is called a blessing and emptiness a curse. Many telephone conversations start with the words: "I know you are busy, but …" and we would confuse the speaker and even harm our reputation were we to say, "Oh no, I am completely free, today, tomorrow and the whole week." Our client might well lose interest in a man who has so little to do.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come.

Thoreau thought obsessively about time and the various ways it could be manipulated by writing; he collapses the two years he spent at Walden into one for the sake of "convenience," but surely also for the sake of artistry.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Today is the only day. Yesterday is gone.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.