Time is a distention of the soul

Since I measure the movement of a body by time and not the other way around – since a long time can only be measured by a short time – and since no physical movement offers a fixed unit of measurement for comparison, the movement of the stars being assumed to be variable – it remains that the extension of time is a distention of the soul.

Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative (The University of Chicago Press, 1984) pp. 15-16