Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.

The saying treats time as an unstoppable force: once a moment has passed, it cannot be “caught” or recovered. From that premise it draws a practical ethic—meet the present with “mirth and cheerfulness,” not because life is frivolous, but because joy is an appropriate form of respect for the fleeting. The line also implies a gentle rebuke to regret and procrastination: brooding over what is gone or waiting for a better hour misunderstands time’s nature. Its significance lies in reframing happiness as a deliberate stance toward transience—an active honoring of the only portion of time we truly possess: the passing present.