poetry,time Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave. Voices of the Night

2. Art is long, and Time is fleeting. Voices of the Night

3. Did I live the spring I’d sought?It’s true in joy, I walked along,took part in dance, and sang the song.and never tried to bind an hourto my borrowed garden bower;nor did I once entreata day to slumber at my feet.Yet days aren’t lulled by lyric song,like morning birds they pass along,o’er crests of trees, to none belong;o’er crests of trees of drying dew,their larking flight, my hands, eschewThus I’ll say it once and true…From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered,I learned that time cannot be spent,It only can be squandered. Rooftop Soliloquy

4. Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting,The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he is to setting.That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer;But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former.Then be not coy, but use your time, And while you may, go marry;For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry.- To the Virgins, To Make much of Time Hesperides, Or, the Works Both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick [Followed By] His Noble Numbers

5. Had we but world enough, and time To His Coy Mistress

6. I will come back to you, I swear I will;And you will know me still.I shall be only a little tallerThan when I went. The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

7. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,So do our minutes hasten to their end;Each changing place with that which goes before,In sequent toil all forwards do contend. The Sonnets and Narrative Poems

8. Minutes, foolish mortal, are the base mineralthat you must not let go of without extracting their gold! Les Fleurs du Mal

9. One way poetry connects is across time. . . . Some echo of a writer's physical experience comes into us when we read her poem. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

10. Sonnet 65Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O! none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright. Shakespeare's Sonnets

11. To His Coy MistressHad we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust; The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. The Complete Poems

12. What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughsAnd stare as long as sheep or cows. Common Joys and Other Poems