Father Time is the anthropomorphized depiction of time. He is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, dressed in a robe and carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping device (which represents time's constant one-way movement, and more generally and abstractly, entropy). This image derives from several sources, including the Grim Reaper and Chronos: Greek God of Time.
Around New Year's Eve many editorial cartoons use the convenient trope of Father Time as the personification of the previous year (or "the Old Year") who typically "hands over" the duties of time to the equally allegorical Baby New Year (or "the New Year") or who otherwise characterizes the preceding year.
Read more about Father Time: In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words father and/or time:
“My father was a gentleman of many virtues,—but he had a strong spice of that in his temper which might, or might not, add to the number.—’Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,—and of obstinacy in a bad one.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!”
—Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918)