September 3, 2010

The Value of Time


I love old books, and I have several vintage school books, primers, and readers that I have bought at estate sales and such.  Sometimes, when I can't sleep at night from a cold, or pregnancy discomforts, I read them until I am sleepy again.  One that I found had many good articles and poems was Bancroft's Fifth Reader, and in particular, the piece on The Economy of Time.  You can find it here on Google: "The Economy of Time" from Bancroft's Fifth Reader.
Just like many people, I have a tendency to waste away the minutes that add up to quarter hours, half hours, and eventually, whole hours...time that can be filled with useful things...like improvements to self, mentally, spiritually, physically; or profitable time spent with children or family and friends.  When I read this article, I printed it, and put it in the front of my household management binder as a very good reminder to me.  I will share a few quotes with you:


"...The man who has wasted the precious hours of life's seed-time finds that he cannot reap a harvest in life's autumn. Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine; but lost time is gone forever."

"Rely upon it, if you are a miser of moments, if you hoard up and turn to account odd minutes and half-hours, you will at last be wealthier in intellectual acquisition, wealthier in good deeds harvested, than thousands whose time is all their own."

"The small stones that fill up the crevices are almost as essential to the firm wall as the great stones; and so the wise use of spare time contributes not a little to the building up of a man's mind in good proportions, and with strength."

Also today, I wanted to share with you a link to some great animal coloring page printables, found on Animal Jr.com.  I'm going to print out some of the cute owl pages for my littlest one, who loves owls.
Free Kids Coloring Pages

And now I'm off to make the most of my minutes today! Happy Friday!

Clock Photo by Suat Eman, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

2 comments:

Stacy said...

Thank you, CalVintage - I really enjoy the variety of your blog posts!

Noellen said...

We always need good reminders about how we are utilizing our time, thanks for the quotes. Also, thanks for the link to the coloring pages - I will be using them for my toddler!

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