Imagine you are standing in an endless, unmoving line. An upcoming appointment looms, and you will be late. Frustration and unexpressed anger bubble up, aimed at an old man or woman at the front of the queue who can’t locate and dig out the wallet buried in a pocket or purse.

It’s about time—the time that slips away, the time things take, the clocks, and the numbers on your phone. When you get old enough, the days start to pass in a flash.

Robert Southey put it this way:

Live as long as you may, the first 21 years are the longest half of your life.

You won’t be able to read all the books you want, see all the concerts, consume every binge-worthy series, or visit all the countries.

Perhaps you should slow down and consider how best to use your time. Would “less” become “more.” More fulfilling?

What have clever people said about this?

Mark Twain wrote:

There isn’t time—so brief is life—for bickerings, apologies, heart-burnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving—& but an instant, so to speak, for that.

Clara Spaulding was a family friend to whom Twain, Sam Clemens’s pen name, offered that advice on August 20, 1886. He was 50 when he penned this letter and 74 when he died.

Some other thoughts on the subject of mortality and time’s brevity:

After all, what is death? Just nature’s way of telling us to slow down.

A. Alvarez identified the quote as an insurance proverb in 1979.

Kingsley Amis suggested the following:

Death has got something to be said for it:

There’s no need to get out of bed for it;

Wherever you may be

They bring it to you, free.

Sounds like breakfast in bed to me. Not what you ordered, of course.

Back to Twain, he knew he had wasted time when young, perhaps reinforcing his advice to Clara Spaulding 10 years later:

Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense and pitiful chuckleheadedness—and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of it all, that is what I was at nineteen and twenty (1876).

Clearly, Twain gave more than a bit of thought to the passage of time, some of it amusing. Here is a quote from a letter to his mother when he turned 43 in 1878:

I broke the back of life yesterday and started downhill toward old age. This fact has not produced any effect on me that I can detect.

T.S. Eliot, another well-remembered writer, seems to have wanted to get on with things, reckoning that if he were closer to his end, there would be some advantages:

The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. (1950, age 62).

Ben Franklin had some advice for those of us who wish to be remembered:

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing. (Poor Richard’s Almanc, 1738). 

I wonder what he would say about blogging?    

At age 20 (1726), Franklin wrote guidance for himself in the form of 13 virtues: 

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use venery for health or offspring, but never dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Goethe, the towering German polymath, had a generous take on man’s demise, at least in some cases:

Mozart died in his six-and-thirtieth year. Raphael at the same age. Byron only a little older. But all these had perfectly fulfilled their missions; and it was time for them to depart, that other people might still have something to do in a world made to last a long while (1828).

Are all of us as sure of our mission as Mozart was?

George Bernard Shaw shared a remarkable view of the male gender to be found in The Revolutionist’s Handbook of 1903:

Every man over 40 is a scoundrel.

Nowadays, one only says that about the cheerleaders for a political party other than ours.

On a more positive note, Corot, the French landscape and portrait painter, offered this:

In July, when I bury my nose in a hazel bush, I feel 15 years old again. It’s good! It smells of love! (1867)

He would be 71 that year, suggesting that love can live and grow into old age.

But let’s leave the last word to a lady of wisdom and cleverness. This comes from Lady Astor, the first woman to become a member of the British Parliament:

I refuse to admit that I am more than 52 even if that does make my sons illegitimate.

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Grombo created Morning Fog at the Golden Gate Bridge. A.F. Bradley took Mark Twain’s 1907 photo. Joseph-Siffred Duplessis painted the Ben Franklin Portrait, and Jean-Antoine Houdon created the Franklin Bust in 1778. Finally, the 1923 picture is of Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor) in 1923. Her dates are 1879—1964. All these came from Wikimedia Commons.