20 Poetic Metaphors About Time

According to proverbs, time heals, steals, and flies. In that same vein, time is also something we all make and take, save and spend, keep, waste, kill, and lose. Habitually and almost without thinking, we explain our relationship to time through metaphors. In ​More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (University of Chicago Press, 1989), George Lakoff and Mark Turner remind us that Metaphor isnt just for poets; its in ordinary language and is the principal way we have of conceptualizing abstract concepts like life, death, and time. So whether were spending it or running out of it (or both), we deal with time metaphorically. 20 Metaphorical Quotes About the Definition of Time Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away. - Ben Hecht Time, you old gipsy man,Will you not stay,Put up your caravanJust for one day? - Ralph Hodgson, Time, You Old Gipsy Man Prince, I warn you, under the rose,Time is the thief you cannot banish.These are my daughters, I suppose.But where in the world did the children vanish? - Phyllis McGinley, Ballade of Lost Objects But thats where I am, theres no escaping it. Times a trap, Im caught in it. - Margaret Atwood, The Handmaids Tale Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked. - Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit She tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, that greatest and longest established Spinner of all, would weave from the threads he had already spun into a woman. But his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes. - Charles Dickens, Hard Times Time is a storm in which we are all lost. Only inside the convolutions of the storm itself shall we find our directions. - William Carlos Williams, Introduction to Selected Essays Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. - Henry David Thoreau, Walden Time is a flowing river. Happy those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment. - Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people cant buy more hours; scientists cant invent new minutes. And you cant save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time youve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. - Denis Waitely,  The Joy of Working Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our notesIs a miser who always wants guineas for groats;He keeps all his customers still in arrearsBy lending them minutes and charging them years. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Our Banker Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. - Carl Sandburg Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely. - Kay Lyons Time is a fixed income and, as with any income, the real problem facing most of us is how to live successfully within our daily allotment. - Margaret B. Johnstone What am I now that I was then?May memory restore again and againThe smallest color of the smallest day:Time is the school in which we learn,Time is the fire in which we burn. - Delmore Schwartz, Calmly We Walk Through This Aprils Day Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. - Faith Baldwin, Face Toward the Spring Initially, I was unaware that time, so boundless at first blush, was a prison. - Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory Time is an irreversible arrow, and we can never return to the self that we sloughed off in childhood or adolescence. The man trying to wear youths carefree clothing, the woman costuming her emotions in dolls dresses — these are pathetic figures who want to reverse times arrow. - Joshua Loth Liebman, Renunciation of Immaturity,  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹from Peace of Mind Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. - Hector Berlioz Time is a gift, given to you,given to give you the time you needthe time you need to have the time of your life. - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth