Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is once past, there is no recalling it. – Jonathan Swift
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. – Jonathan Swift
Where there are large powers with little ambition… nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes. – Jonathan Swift
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