Si nemo a me querat, scio, si quarenti explicare velim, nescio.
Augustinus (354-430), Confessiones, lib. XI, cap. 14.
Maximae res, cum parvis quaeruntur, magnos eos solent efficere.
Augustinus, Contra Academicos, 1. 2. 6
Time is a tangle of the most elusive and difficult topics in philosophy. For a mere mortal to grapple with any of them may be hubris, given the Augustinian predicament: “If no one asks me, I know [what time is]; if I want to explain it to someone who asks me, I do not know.”
But undaunted we proceed under the aegis of the second quotation above: “Matters of the greatest importance, when they are investigated by little men, tend to make those men great.”