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

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

Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.” – Virgil, Minor Poems, Copa

A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time. – Francis Bacon, Essays