Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.

And Eternity in an hour.

The odd thing was that, no matter how much time he saved, he never had any to spare; in some mysterious way, it simply vanished.

People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming ever poorer, bleaker and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them any more. But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had.

Niemand schien zu merken, daß er, indem er Zeit sparte, in Wirklichkeit etwas ganz anderes sparte. Keiner wollte wahr haben, daß sein Leben immer ärmer, immer gleichförmiger und immer kälter wurde. [...] Aber Zeit ist Leben. Und das Leben wohnt im Herzen. Und je mehr die Menschen daran sparten, desto weniger hatten sie.

In their view, even leisure time had to be used to the full, so as to extract the maximum of entertainment and relaxation with the minimum of delay.