Quotes about wasting

The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916, part 2, p. 1.
Also included in Jack London’s Tales of Adventure, ed. Irving Shepard, Introduction, p. vii (1956)

Variant: "I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." also mentioned as Jack London quote in Ian Fleming book You Only Live Twice (1964), Ch. 21 : Orbit
Source: San Francisco Bulletin in 1916. Also included as an introduction to a compilation of Jack London short stories in 1956.

Variant: Wanting to be someone else is the waste of who you are

Variant: Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
Source: Selected Poems and Letters

Misattributed to Meryl Streep (and widely disseminated on the Internet as of August/September 2014), this quote is allegedly a translation of a text by the author José Micard Teixeira, the original of which begins (in Portuguese): "Já não tenho paciência para algumas coisas, não porque me tenha tornado arrogante..."
Misattributed

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Source: You Only Live Twice (1964), Ch. 21 : Orbit. Fleming is quoting Jack London directly.

As quoted in Rolling Stone (1992-04-16).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
Context: All drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self-esteem. They’re no good at all. But I’m not going to go around preaching against [them].

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)
Context: We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!" We think that such cheap "criticism" is undignified and useless.
Nor are we the kind of people who console themselves with the thought that the Anarchists "have no masses behind them and, therefore, are not so dangerous." It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters. If the "doctrine" of the Anarchists expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly hew a path for itself and will rally the masses around itself. If, however, it is unsound and built up on a false foundation, it will not last long and will remain suspended in mid-air. But the unsoundness of anarchism must be proved.
Some people believe that Marxism and anarchism are based on the same principles and that the disagreements between them concern only tactics, so that, in the opinion of these people, no distinction whatsoever can be drawn between these two trends.
This is a great mistake.
We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.

The Lion and the Mouse.
Variant: No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Preface to Food for the Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions by Steven Rosen (New York: Bala Books, 1987, )
Variant: To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.
Context: Vegetarianism is my religion. I became a consistent vegetarian some twenty-three years ago. Before that, I would try over and over again. But it was sporadic. Finally, in the mid-1960s, I made up my mind. And I've been a vegetarian ever since. When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. … This is my protest against the conduct of the world. To be a vegetarian is to disagree — to disagree with the course of things today. Nuclear power, starvation, cruelty — we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.

This is a paraphrase of Sagan quoting Thomas Carlyle: "A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space."
Sagan delivered this quote during the symposium on "Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man", held at Boston University (20 November 1972), published in Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man (1973) edited by Richard Berendzen; Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man (1975) National Archives video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQeOp7a8QMI
Misattributed
Source: Contact

Source: Time Enough for Love

Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

volume I, chapter VI: "The Voyage", page 266 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=284&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter to sister Susan Elizabeth Darwin (4 August 1836)
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)
Source: The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

1960s, Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master (1961)

Extract from an interview by James Francis Cooke, as given in the 1999 edition of Great Pianists on Piano Playing (Mineola: Dover Publications, 1999) p. 217.

Anandamayi Ma, Ananda Varta Quarterly
By herself

As quoted in Alan Walker, Franz Liszt : The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847 (1987) Page 117.

Personal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A. Minihan, p. 17
General

Μηκέθ᾽ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.
X, 16
Variant: Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X

Source: The Last Wish

Source: What I Know For Sure

Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19

As quoted by Varro in De Lingua Latina, Book V

In this quote Dasa is warning against the inevitable when one is busy with worldly chores as given here[Narayan, M.K.V., Lyrical Musings on Indic Culture: A Sociology Study of Songs of Sant Purandara Dasa, http://books.google.com/books?id=-r7AxJp6NOYC&pg=PA79, 1 January 2010, Readworthy, 978-93-80009-31-5, 81]

"The White Omen"

First On The Moon : A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E Aldrin, Jr. (1970) edited by Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, p. 113, states of this: "Like many a quote which gets printed once and therefore enshrined in the libraries of all newspapers and magazines, this particular one was erroneous. Neil recalled having heard the quote, and he even recalled having repeated it once. He did not subscribe to its thesis, however, and he only quoted it so that he could disagree with it."
Misattributed

"The Symphony" (1875).
Poetry

Incesticide liner notes (1992)

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 51

Gertrude Elion https://www.famousscientists.org/gertrude-b-elion/

Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 31.

Quoted by Masiela Lusha in a 2009 press conference http://www.masielalusha.com/board.php

The Value of Science (1955)

2000s, 2004, 2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29

10. "Love" (p. 79)
Liuyan [《流言》] (1968)

Source: Kodokan Judo (1882), p. 23
Context: Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances, and helps us to understand that worry is a waste of energy. Paradoxically, the man who has failed and one who is at the peak of success are in exactly the same position. Each must decide what he will do next, choose the course that will lead him to the future. The teachings of judo give each the same potential for success, in the former instance guiding a man out of lethargy and disappointment to a state of vigorous activity.

Source: For One More Day

Source: Game

Source: The Story of a New Name

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

Source: Brisingr

Source: The Truth About Forever

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

"Emotions", p. 36.
The Second Sin (1973)

Interview in Playboy magazine (November 1975)

Source: The Circle

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Source: The Temple of My Familiar

Source: Richard II

Source: Genuine Lies

Source: It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

Source: Richard II

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 10; Here Lee paraphrases a much older English proverb: If you care for life, don't waste your time; for time is what life is made of. (as quoted in Bordighera and the Western Riviera (1883) by Frederick Fitzroy Hamilton, p. 189).
Context: Time means a lot to me because, you see, I, too, am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing and simplifying. If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Himalayan Lust

Source: Emma

Source: Diary

Variant: It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past.
Source: Dune

Source: Journal of a Solitude

A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 544
Attributed from posthumous publications

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 10

Source: On the Road: The Original Scroll

Source: Vintage Munro

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Source: Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

Source: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit