Time & Perspective Quote by Charles F. Kettering

Time, for Kettering, isn’t a thief; it’s raw material. The line turns the banal ritual of ripping off a calendar page into a small act of agency, a daily reset button that frames change as both ordinary and available. It works because it takes something rigid and accounting-like - the calendar as a ledger of what’s been “used up” - and flips it into an open slot for invention. You’re not losing days; you’re making room.

The specific intent is motivational, but it’s not the fuzzy kind. Kettering was an industrial-era inventor who lived inside deadlines, prototypes, and the relentless churn of applied science. In that world, “progress” isn’t a slogan; it’s a deliverable. The quote smuggles a work ethic into a metaphor: new ideas don’t arrive by inspiration alone, they need space, a cleared surface, an emptied page. The calendar becomes a production system for optimism.

The subtext carries a gentle rebuke to nostalgia and paralysis. If you’re clinging to yesterday’s page - yesterday’s methods, yesterday’s identity, yesterday’s fear - you’re literally blocking the next one. That’s a very Kettering move: faith in iteration over perfection, in tomorrow’s experiment over today’s certainty.

Context matters: Kettering’s lifetime spans electrification, mass manufacturing, world wars, and the rise of corporate R&D. In a century where “the new” could be both miraculous and terrifying, he offers a clean, almost domestic image of forward motion. Progress isn’t thunderbolts; it’s a habit you can practice every morning.