We do not do what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that is the fact. – Jean Paul Sartre, Situations, 1939

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There was George, throwing away in hideous sloth the inestimable gift of time; his valuable life, every second of which he would have to account for hereafter, passing away from him, unused…. sprawling there, sunk in soul-clogging oblivion. – Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), 1889