679. Time "It is well known, that time once past never returns; and that the moment which is lost is lost for ever. Time therefore ought, above all other kinds of property, to be free from invasion and yet there is no man who does not claim the power of wasting that time which is the right of others." Johnson: Idler #14 (July 15, 1758) Link 681. Schedules; Time "A very small part of the year is spent by choice; scarcely any thing is done when it is intended, or obtained when it is desired. Life is continually ravaged by invaders; one steals away an hour, and another a day; once conceals the robbery by hurrying us into business, another by lulling us with amusement; the depredation is continued through a thousand vicissitudes of tumult and tranquillity till, having lost all, we can lose no more." Johnson: Idler #14 (July 15, 1758) Link 791. Old Age; Procrastination; Time "So far are we generally from thinking what we often say of the shortness of life, that at the time when it is necessarily shortest we form projects which we delay to execute, indulge such expectations as nothing but along train of events can gratify, and suffer those passions to gain upon us which are only excusable in the prime of life." Johnson: Rambler #71 (November 20, 1750) Link 793. Effort; Procrastination; Time "Not only in the slumber of sloth, but in the dissipation of ill directed industry, is the shortness of life generally forgotten. As some men lose their hours in laziness, because they suppose that there is time enough for the reparation of neglect; others busy themselves in providing that no length of life may want employment; and it often happens that sluggishness and activity are equally surprised by the last summons, and perish not more differently form each other, than the fowl that received the shot in her flight, from her that is killed upon the bush." Johnson: Rambler #71 (November 20, 1750) Link 796. Mortality; Procrastination; Time "As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration, and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow. But he that has already trifled away those months and years, in which he should have laboured, must remember that he has now only a part of that which the whole is little; and that, since the few moments remaining are to be considered as the last days of Heaven, not one is to be lost." Johnson: Rambler #71 (November 20, 1750) Link 802. Boredom; Time "Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly to him whose whole employment is to watch its flight." Johnson: Idler #21 (September 2, 1758) Link 902. Time; Winter "The nakedness and asperity of the wintry world always fills the beholder with pensive and profound astonishment: as the variety of the scene is lessened, its grandeur is increased; and the mind is swelled at once by the mingled ideas of the present and the past, of the beauties which have vanished from the eyes, and the waste and desolation that are now before them." Johnson: Rambler #80 (December 22, 1750) Link 946. Boredom; Diversion; Idleness; Time; Wealth "Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and ... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use. To set himself free from these incumbrences, one hurries to Newmarket; another travels over Europe; one pulls down his house and calls architects about him; another buys a seat in the country, and follows his hounds over hedges and through rivers; one makes collections of shells; and another searches the world for tulips and carnations." Johnson: Idler #30 (November 11, 1758) Link 1,098. Diligence; Time "He that hopes to look back hereafter with satisfaction upon past years must learn to know the present value of single minutes, and endeavour to let no particle of time fall useless to the ground." Johnson: Rambler #108 (March 30, 1751) Link 1,106. Audacity; Old Age; Time; Youth "At our entrance into the world, when health and vigour give us fair promises of time sufficient for the regular maturation of our schemes, and a long enjoyment of our acquisitions, we are eager to seize the present moment; we pluck every gratification within our reach without suffering it to ripen into perfection, and crowd all the varieties of delight into a narrow compass; but age seldom fails to change our conduct; we grow negligent of time in proportion as we have less remaining, and suffer the last part of life to steal from us in languid preparations for future undertakings, or slow approaches to remote advantages, in weak hopes of some fortuitous occurrence, or drowsy equilibrations of undetermined counsel. Whether it be that the aged having tasted the pleasures of man's condition, and found them delusive, become less anxious for their attainment; or that frequent miscarriages have depressed them to despair, and frozen them to inactivity; or that death shocks them more as it advances upon them, and they are afraid to remind themselves of their decay, or to discover o their own hearts that the time of trifling is past." Johnson: Rambler #111 (April 9, 1751) Link 1,301. Deliberation; Time "About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right." Johnson: Addison (Lives of the Poets) Link 1,603. Custom; Desires; Time "As we lose part of our time because it steals away silent and invisible, and many an hour is passed before we recollect that it is passing; so unnatural desires insinuate themselves unobserved into the mind, and we do not perceive that they are gaining upon us, till the pain which they give us awakens us to notice. No man is sufficiently vigilant to take account of every minute of his life, or to watch every motion of his heart. Much of our time likewise is sacrificed to custom; we trifle, because we see others trifle; in the same manner, we catch from example the contagion of desire; we see all about us busied in pursuit of imaginary good, and begin to bustle in the same chase, lest greater activity should triumph over us." Johnson: Adventurer #119 (December 25, 1753) Link 1,660. Time "Much of my time has sunk into nothing, and left no trace by which it can be distinguished; and of this I now only know, that it was once in my power, and might once have been improved." Johnson: Adventurer #137 (February 26, 1754) Link 1,701. Time "He that is carried forward, however swiftly, by a motion equable and easy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects. If the wheel of life, which rolls thus silently along, passed on through undistinguishable uniformity, we should never mark its approaches to the end of the course. If one hour were like another; if the passage of the sun did not shew that the day is wasting; if the change of seasons did not impress upon us the flight of the year; quantities of duration equal to days and years would glide by unobserved. If the parts of time were not variously coloured, we should never discern their departure or succession, but should live thoughtless of the past, and careless of the future, without will, and perhaps without power, to compute the periods of life, or to compare the time which is already lost with that which may probably remain." Johnson: Idler #43 (February 10, 1759) Link 1,703. Time "So little do we accustom ourselves to consider the effects of time, that things necessary and certain often surprise us like unexpected contingencies. We leave the beauty in her bloom, and, after an absence of twenty years, wonder, at our return, to find her faded. We meet those whom we left children, and can scarcely persuade ourselves to treat them as men. The traveller visits in age those countries through which he rambled in his youth, and hopes for merriment at the old place. The man of business, wearied with unsatisfactory prosperity, retires to the town of his nativity, and expects to play away the last years with the companions of his childhood, and recover youth in the fields where he once was young." Johnson: Idler #43 (February 10, 1759) Link 1,704. Time "Let him that desires to see others happy make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes something from the value of his benefaction. And let him who purposes his own happiness reflect, that while he forms his purpose the day rolls on, and the night cometh when no man can work." Johnson: Idler #43 (February 10, 1759) Link