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“While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”
Limited time turns character into a present-tense responsibility rather than a future intention.
Source note: Meditations, Book IV, in George Long’s translation.
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“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
Awareness of limited time is turned into a reason to choose more wisely rather than merely fear mortality.
Source note: Psalm 90:12 in the King James Version.
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“Let us live up to the fulness of our possibilities each day. Man has only one day of life—to-day.”
Jordan makes development immediate: today is the only day in which ability, responsibility and intention can actually be converted into conduct.
Source note: The Power of Truth, “People Who Live in Air-Castles.” The line is a present-action argument within conduct-of-life writing, not a literal denial of memory, planning or future obligations.
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“To be awake is to be alive.”
Being fully attentive is presented as a deeper form of living than merely moving through routine.
Source note: Walden, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”
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“Without life there can be no action”
The excerpt connects finite existence with agency: action, pursuit and intention require continued life, which helps explain why future time matters to an active person.
Source note: The Round Table, No. 1, “On the Love of Life,” January 15, 1815. The phrase occurs inside Hazlitt’s broader argument that passions and projects strengthen attachment to life.
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“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”
Voice: Fictional character · King Richard II
Time ignored earlier becomes painfully visible later, when opportunities narrow and delay can no longer be recovered.
Source note: Richard II, Act 5, Scene 5.