Ecclesiastes 3:1

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose The two Hebrew nouns stand to each other in much the same relation as the Greek χρόνος and καιρός, the former expressing a period of duration, the latter the appointed time at which an event happens. Accepting this view, the words "season" and "time" in the A. V. ought, perhaps, to change places. The thought is one of which we find an echo in the maxim of Pittacus, Καιρὸν γνῶθι "Know the right season for everything" (Diog. Laert. i. 4, § 6). It is significant, in connexion with the conclusion maintained in the Introduction, Ch. iii., that Demetrius Phalereus, the librarian of Ptolemy Philadelphus, wrote a treatise, περὶ καιροῦ, of opportuneness(Diog. Laert. Ecclesiastes 3:5 § 9). So Theognis, (402), Μηδὲν ἄγαν σπεύδειν, καιρὸς δʼ ἐπὶ πάσιν ἄριστος, "Do nothing in excess, In all we do is the right season precious." So here the thought with which the new section opens is that it is wisdom to do the right thing at the right time, that inopportuneness is the bane of life. The survey of human occupations and interests that follows has a striking parallel in the Meditationsof Marcus Aurelius (iv. 32), who, from his Stoic standpoint, sees in their perpetual recurrence, evidence of the monotonous iteration of the phenomena of man's life, analogous to that of the phenomena of Nature.