There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

The aphorism treats time as a person’s most valuable possession and frames its loss as a form of theft that ordinary law cannot punish. By calling the thief a “robber,” the line moralizes wasted or stolen time—whether through procrastination, distraction, bureaucracy, or others’ impositions—as an injury comparable to material crime. The contrast between what law can regulate (property) and what it cannot (the irrecoverable passage of time) underscores a stoic, utilitarian view of life: time is the nonrenewable resource on which achievement, freedom, and happiness depend. The quote’s force lies in making an abstract loss concrete and culpable.