Welcome to our collection of clock quotes, where time is not just a measurement but a concept that transcends its mere ticking seconds and minutes. Clocks have long been symbolic of the relentless march of time, reminding us of its ceaseless flow and the inevitability of change. From ancient sundials to modern digital displays, clocks have been ingrained in human culture as markers of schedules, routines, and the passage of seasons.
In the words of renowned thinkers, poets, and philosophers, we find reflections on the nature of time, its significance in our lives, and its elusive essence. These quotes offer insights, musings, and contemplations on the complex relationship between humanity and the inexorable force of time. Whether pondering the fleeting nature of existence or celebrating the moments that define us, these words resonate with the universal experience of grappling with time’s mysteries and embracing its gifts.
Below, you’ll find a curated selection of quotes from various sources that encapsulate the multifaceted nature of time and clocks. Feel free to use these quotes to reflect on your own journey, incorporate them into your creative projects, or simply savor them as timeless reminders of the ever-rolling wheel of time.
I protest that if some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and would up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. Thomas Huxley
My cousin’s gay, he went to London only to find out that Big Ben was a clock. Rodney Dangerfield
There are always deadlines I have to meet. I don’t let myself get too close to the deadlines, so it’s not like I’m just sweating bullets or anything if the clock is ticking. I never let myself get in that situation. Scott Adams
I’m not a very emotional guy. I just move on to the next play. I’ve always been that way. I don’t like showing much. I just try to do my job and get out. It’s important to stay poised until that clock says zero. Tony Snell
When the wedding march sounds the resolute approach, the clock no longer ticks, it tolls the hour. The figures in the aisle are no longer individuals, they symbolize the human race. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
I don’t need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning. Akshay snores so loudly that I’m usually awake the entire night! Twinkle Khanna
‘Minute to Win It’ is a variation on a game show from the 1950s called ‘Beat the Clock,’ in which contestants won washing machines and fox stoles by doing such pointless stunts as catching a tennis ball in a paper cup or knocking a hat off one’s wife’s head with a whipped-cream spritzer. Tom Shales
Having designed and built several clocks during my career it suddenly occurred to me that when you look at the face of a clock both hands have the same center. Kit Williams
The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up. William Hazlitt
A minister has to be able to read a clock. At noon, it’s time to go home and turn up the pot roast and get the peas out of the freezer. Garrison Keillor
I don’t know if it’s just me or everyone, but the whole vibe with skiing is not so much thriving on competition against others as it is against myself and the clock. Picabo Street
In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock! Graham Greene
You can’t ever make the perfect run, but you can make the best run, and then you clock the fastest time, and that’s a win. Mikaela Shiffrin
When you’re on set, and that clock is going, every second you spend doing something is a second you spend not doing something else. That’s true of all of life, but it’s very vivid on a film set because you’re always managing that. Greta Gerwig
It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Bram Stoker
The rock era, as I clock it, went from ’65 to ’94, from ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ to Kurt Cobain’s death. Steven Van Zandt
Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock. Pablo Picasso
YouTube began as a failed video-dating site. Twitter was a failed music service. In each case, the founders continued to try new concepts when their big ideas failed. They often worked around the clock to try to overcome their failure before all their capital was spent. Speed to fail gives a startup more runway to pivot and ultimately succeed. Jay Samit
Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some. Jocko Willink
Homey don’t quit. What else are you gonna do? It’s like those guys in the cartoon they get up in the morning, check the clock and fight all day and after it’s over they check the clock and go home. That’s how it goes. Chubby Checker
When it comes to the New Year, I make it a point to catch my mum and dad awake before the clock strikes 12. Then, I celebrate the night with friends. Amy Jackson
I must govern the clock, not be governed by it. Golda Meir
Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you – you do not even suspect that the day has already dawned outside. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
There’s probably nothing quite like crossing the finish line and seeing the clock read numbers that you have never seen before. Bonnie Blair
There’s a battle rhythm, a body clock that tells you it’s time for football. For me, it’s always I know when I get my first football dream. That’s my body clock telling me it’s time to compete. Jim Harbaugh
Parents want their children to excel, callers to a victims’ hot line want help, and sick people want to get well. Offering aids is like providing an alarm clock: it may help people get to an appointment on time, but no one is forcing them to use it. Richard Thaler
The game isn’t over till the clock says zero. Paul Pierce
The whole idea of creating saints, it’s pure ‘Monty Python.’ They have to clock up two miracles. Richard Dawkins
The calendar and the clock are all set by football season and the offseason. Tom Coughlin
My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don’t know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing. Meghan O’Rourke
I miss the common things, the things that used to really annoy me, like an alarm clock. The sound of your zipper as your fly is being pulled up so that you know it actually is up. The sound of the door as it closes, to know that it’s really shut. Mandy Harvey
My father was a shaman. He told me that time doesn’t exist. He didn’t use a clock. He didn’t know when my birthday was. Alessandro Michele
You never want to have that ticking clock and know that you had all this time and didn’t use it. J. J. Abrams
If we are indeed nostalgic for the weight of clock time, it is worth remembering that the standardized time that most of us know has only been around since the mid-nineteenth century. It was invented for the railroads. Stacey D’Erasmo
Christmas is relentless. It’s around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen, and we watch movie after movie after movie. Sayed Kashua
When I’m off the clock, I usually play video games – or do something nature-y so I can contribute to Mother Nature. Harry Shum, Jr.
I would like to find a stew that will give me heartburn immediately, instead of at three o clock in the morning. John Barrymore
My husband and I love to travel. For me, a dream vacation in Brazil begins first and foremost with a rad hotel. Then, number two is eating – eating delicious food nonstop, almost around the clock. And then a mix of relaxation and beaches, and doing adventures. Shanola Hampton
Christmas is the season I use to clock failure in life. It stops time, as it were, on the year – where you are in it, where you are in your travail unto the grave. Padgett Powell
A functional biological clock has three components: input from the outside world to set the clock, the timekeeping mechanism itself, and genetic machinery that allows the clock to regulate expression of a variety of genes. Jeffrey C. Hall
Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going. Sam Levenson
By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour. Victor Hugo
What happens is that with difficult processes on a film, they get very intensely compressed because a clock is ticking. Kenneth Branagh
There’s no sense talking about priorities. Priorities reveal themselves. We’re all transparent against the face of the clock. Eric Zorn
For women of a certain age, how do you meet a guy, fall in love, and decide he’s the right man to have children with? Your clock’s ticking, you’re looking at him, and it’s a crazy, pressure-filled experience. Marcia Cross
Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture. Ernest Hemingway
I’ll just tell you the way it is. You ask me what time it is and I’m gonna tell you how to build a clock. Dick Dale
I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience – it also marks the time, which is four o clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Like the United Nations, there is something inspirational about New York as a great melting pot of different cultures and traditions. And if this is the city that never sleeps, the United Nations works tirelessly, around the clock around the world. Ban Ki-moon
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Joseph Addison
We all deal with issues of time. The first thing you do in the morning is look at the clock to see what time it is. Jeremy Piven
If you were not to set an alarm clock, would you sleep past it? If the answer is yes, then there is clearly more sleep that is needed. Matthew Walker
We cannot turn the clock back nor can we undo the harm caused, but we have the power to determine the future and to ensure that what happened never happens again. Paul Kagame
The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be. John Henrik Clarke
The most difficult part of playing Christ was that I had to keep up the image around the clock. As soon as the picture finished, I returned home to Sweden and tried to find my old self. It took six months to get back to normal. Max von Sydow
Television is blue-collar work. You clock in in the morning; you work 12, 13 hours – sometimes 18 hours if you’re doing ‘Orphan Black.’ Jordan Gavaris
I can’t turn the clock back but I can seek the forgiveness of those I’ve wronged. Richard Coles
I just want to give my best in London, I want to cross that line and see a personal best on the clock then I will see what position I am in. Asafa Powell
It took me a while to learn the true meaning of patience and surrender, but I have finally accepted that healing doesn’t happen on our schedule. It doesn’t have a clock or a calendar. Yolanda Hadid
Ben Roethlisberger is a proven winner in athletic competition. But the measure of a true leader is how they conduct themselves 24/7, not just during a winning touchdown drive or a goal-line stance. Leadership isn’t something that gets switched off because the game clock expires. Jackson Katz
Being a father, well, I don’t know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just ’cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work. Richard Dean Anderson
As the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day; that doesn’t mean you should run out and buy one. Euny Hong
Everyone has a breaking point, turning point, stress point, the game is permeated with it. The fans don’t see it because we make it look so efficient. But internally, for a guy to be successful, you have to be like a clock spring, wound but not loose at the same time. Dave Winfield
It’s a wise man who understands that every day is a new beginning, because boy, how many mistakes do you make in a day? I don’t know about you, but I make plenty. You can’t turn the clock back, so you have to look ahead. Mel Gibson
As a kid at the World’s Fair in 1965, I missed seeing the big global population clock roll over from 2,999,999,999 to 3 billion – I was really disappointed. Bill Nye
When a car’s ahead of you, as long as you can see it, you get a tow, just like the draft in NASCAR. Even if it’s a long ways down the track, it punches a hole in the air that has to help. When you’re running alone, you can feel the difference, and it shows on the clock, too. Mario Andretti
Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. Robert Louis Stevenson
I collect travel alarm clocks. I was in a flea market in France once, in 1994, and I opened up this beautiful Jaeger-LeCoultre folding eight-day winding clock folded into a beautiful case, and I went, ‘Wow, man.’ And I’ve been collecting travel alarm clocks since 1994. Alec Baldwin
I usually wake up around 7:30 A.M. without an alarm clock. I wake up naturally because I’m huge on sleep. I believe it’s the No. 1 thing you can do if you’re trying to create a better life. Tony Gonzalez
Average leaders inspire people to punch a time clock. Great leaders inspire industry and passion. Joseph B. Wirthlin
You have to cherish things in a different way when you know the clock is ticking, you are under pressure. Chadwick Boseman
Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don’t run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly unrealistic that this had to be explained to them. Thomas Sowell
The clock never stops, never stops, never waits. We’re growing old. It’s getting late. Ben Folds
We do not believe voters gave President Bush a mandate to turn back the clock decades on so many of our legal protections. Ralph G. Neas
I like the shot clock and I like the three point play. John Havlicek
The death clock is ticking slowly in our breast, and each drop of blood measures its time, and our life is a lingering fever. Georg Buchner
There are some good people. But a good chunk of them will lie for no reason at all – it’ll be ten o’clock and they’ll tell you it’s nine. You’re looking at the clock and you can’t even fathom why they’re lying. They just lie because that’s what they do. John Cusack
The same biological clock ticks away in humans and fruit flies, which underscores the importance of circadian timing to life on this planet. Michael Rosbash
Every so often, we all gaze into the abyss. It’s a depressing fact of life that eventually the clock expires; eventually the sand in the hourglass runs out. It’s the leaving behind of everything that matters to us that hurts the most. Ben Shapiro
There’s a clock ticking on the pregnancy thing, but not a clock ticking on adoption. Aisha Tyler
I marketed pens – on the phone. But the beauty of the gig was that you had to call these strangers and say, ‘Hi, how ya doing?’ You made up a name, like, ‘Hey, it’s Edward Quartermaine from California. You’re eligible to receive this grandfather clock or a trip to Tahiti.’ You promise them all these things if they buy a gross of pens. Johnny Depp
In 1966, I bought my parents a carriage clock for their silver wedding anniversary. It was last wound 30 years later, in December 1996, the month my father died. Clive Sinclair
A person who has not done one half his day’s work by ten o clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone. Emily Bronte
If the universe is running down like a clock, the clock must have been wound up at a date which we could name if we knew it. The world, if it is to have an end in time, must have had a beginning in time. William Inge
What helps with aging is serious cognition – thinking and understanding. You have to truly grasp that everybody ages. Everybody dies. There is no turning back the clock. So the question in life becomes: What are you going to do while you’re here? Goldie Hawn
A really fun fan moment was when a fan gave me a copy of ‘Legend’ that he had turned into a functional clock! Marie Lu
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. Ben Hecht
In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. Graham Greene
When you’re running a route, timing is everything. You have an internal clock – a timer that goes off in your mind that tells you that you need to be ready for the ball – and you have to get to your spot on time. Davante Adams
The clock, for all its precision in measurement, is a blunt instrument for the psyche and for society. Schedules can replace sensitivity to the mood of a moment, clock time can ride roughshod over the emotions of individuals. Jay Griffiths
In the midst of the heartbreak and wreckage of 9-11, the world also witnessed what is America’s greatest strength. Firefighters, nurses, police officers, first responders and local residents worked around the clock to rescue and care for those injured. Dan Coats
The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure. William Blake
Two subsequent incidents of import established CNN: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, which CNN was the only network to cover as it happened, and the 1991 Gulf War, which CNN chronicled round the clock from a proximity as irresistible as it was alarming, bomb blasts and gunfire lighting up TV screens from coast to coast. Steve Erickson
I experienced how Pep Guardiola worked every day. He had football on his mind round the clock: ‘What system does the opponent like to play? How do I want to set up my team, who do I want in which position?’ Philipp Lahm
In general, I usually don’t really go by or live my life by a clock, and outside of touring, I don’t really ask anyone else to. It’s not out of lack of respect for anyone or intentional. Axl Rose
I’m single, and I think that by the time I met someone – if I were ever to meet the right person, which I don’t think I will, because I am too fussy – my biological clock means that it will be too late. Julia Sawalha
Yes, sir, no, sir, clock in, clock out. Why were you late? Why are you not in today? That’s not how humans are supposed to live. Conor McGregor
The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked. Tillie Olsen
I think recovery is around the clock. Are you sleeping enough? Are you hydrating enough? Are you stretching? Are you eating well? Pretty much everything that I do is a reflection of how I’m going to feel on the field. I take great pride in getting in an ice bath after training and just taking care of myself. Carli Lloyd