Daily Inspiration Quote by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare hands you a line that sounds like a proverb, then quietly turns it into a coping mechanism. "Time and the hour run through the roughest day" insists on movement: not the heroic kind, not the kind you control, but the stubborn forward-motion of clocks and bodies that keeps going even when you feel pinned in place. The verb "run" matters. Time doesn’t limp or pause to honor your suffering; it runs, indifferent and efficient, dragging you with it. That’s both comfort and threat: your pain won’t last forever, but neither will your chance to act.

In context, the line sits in Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 3), spoken by Banquo after the witches vanish and Ross arrives with real political news. The supernatural has cracked open Macbeth’s imagination, but Banquo’s response is pointedly practical: the day may be rough, yet it will be traversed. Subtextually, Banquo is offering Macbeth an off-ramp from obsession. Don’t overread prophecy; let time do its ordinary work. Macbeth, of course, takes the opposite lesson: if time runs, he’ll sprint ahead of it with murder.

The rhetoric is deceptively simple: paired nouns ("time and the hour") widen the idea from cosmic to quotidian, as if to say fate and schedule are on the same team. Shakespeare’s intent isn’t bland reassurance. It’s dramatic irony with a ticking fuse: time will indeed carry everyone forward, but in this play, what it carries them toward is consequence.