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Life

For like a child, sent with a fluttering light To feel his way along a gusty night, Man walks the world. Again, and yet again, The lamp shall be by fits of passion slain; But shall not He who sent him from the door Relight the lamp once more, and yet once more?Edward FitzGerald, translation of Attars Mantik-ut-Tair Bird Parliament. In Letters and Literary Remains of FitzGerald, Volume II, p. 457.

Edward FitzGerald, translation of Attars Mantik-ut-Tair Bird Parliament. In Letters and Literary Remains of FitzGerald, Volume II, p. 457.

The King in a carriage may ride, And the Beggar may crawl at his side; But in the general race, They are traveling all the same pace.Edward FitzGerald, Chrononoros.

Were the offer made true, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask should be the privilege of an author, to correct, in a second edition, certain errors of the first.Benjamin Franklin, in his Life.

Dost thou love Life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard.

We live merely on the crust or rind of things.James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, Lucian.

The old Quaker was right: I expect to pass through life but once. If there is any kindness, or any good thing I can do to my fellow beings, let me do it now. I shall pass this way but once.W. C. Gannett, Blessed be Drudgery.

Lebe, wie Du, wenn du stirbst, Wünschen wirst, gelebt zu haben.Live in such a way as, when you come to die, you will wish to have lived. C. F. Gellert, Geistliche Oden und Lieder, Vom Tode.

Die uns das Leben gaben, herrliche Gefühle, Erstarren in dem irdischen Gewühle.The fine emotions whence our lives we mold Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, I. 1. 286.

Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum.My worthy friend, gray are all theories And green alone Lifes golden tree. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, I. 4. 515.

Ein unnütz Leben ist ein früher Tod.A useless life is an early death. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Iphigenia auf Tauris, I, 2, 63.

Singet nicht in Trauertönen.Sing it not in mournful numbers. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister, Philine.

I would live the same life over if I had to live again, And the chances are I go where most men go.Adam Lindsay Gordon

Life is mostly froth and bubble; Two things stand like stone: Kindness in anothers trouble Courage in our own.Adam Lindsay Gordon, Ye Weary Wayfarer, Finis Exoptatus.

Along the cool sequestered vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 19.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord to François Guizot, reported in Guizot, Memoirs pour Servir a lhistoire de nous Temps, Volume I, p. 6.

— Life memoir

Who but knows How it goes! Lifes a last years Nightingale, Loves a last years rose.William Ernest Henley, Echoes, XLV.

Life is a smoke that curls— Curls in a flickering skein, That winds and whisks and whirls, A figment thin and vain, Into the vast inane. One end for hut and hall.William Ernest Henley, Of the Nothingness of Things.

I made a posy, while the day ran by: Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band. But time did beckon to the flowers, and they By noon most cunningly did steal away, And witherd in my hand.George Herbert, Life.

Life is not to be bought with heaps of gold; Not all Apollos Pythian treasures hold, Or Troy once held, in peace and pride of sway, Can bribe the poor possession of the day.Homer, The Iliad, Book IX, line 524. Popes translation.

For Fate has wove the thread of life with pain, And twins evn from the birth are Misery and Man!Homer, The Odyssey, Book VII, line 263. Popes translation.

Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. Jam te premet nox, fabulæque Manes, Et domus exilis Plutonia.The short span of life forbids us to spin out hope to any length. Soon will night be upon you, and the fabled Shades, and the shadowy Plutonian home. Horace, Carmina, I. 4. 15.

Ille potens sui Lætusque deget, cui licet in diem Dixisse Vixi; cras vel atra Nube polum pater occupato, Vel sole puro, non tamen irritum Quodcunque retro est efficiet.That man lives happy and in command of himself, who from day to day can say I have lived. Whether clouds obscure, or the sun illumines the following day, that which is past is beyond recall. Horace, Carmina, III. 29. 41.

Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.He who postpones the hour of living as he ought, is like the rustic who waits for the river to pass along before he crosses; but it glides on and will glide on forever. Horace, Epistles, I. 2. 41.

— Life living

Nec vixit male qui natus moriensque fefellit.Nor has he spent his life badly who has passed it in privacy. Horace, Epistles, I. 17. 10.

Exacto contentus tempore vita cedat uti conviva satur.Content with his past life, let him take leave of life like a satiated guest. Horace, Satires, I. 1. 118.

Life isnt all beer and skittles; but beer and skittles or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishmans education.Thomas Hughes, Tom Browns School Days, Part I, Chapter 2.

The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.Huxley, Liberal Education. In Science and Education.

— Life education

There is but halting for the wearied foot; The better way is hidden. Faith hath failed; One stronger far than reason mastered her. It is not reason makes faith hard, but life.Jean Ingelow, A Pastors Letter to a Young Poet, Part II, line 231.

A fair, where thousands meet, but none can stay; An inn, where travellers bait, then post away.Soame Jenkyns, Immortality of the Soul. Translated from the Latin of Isaac Hawkins Browne.

Reflect that life, like every other blessing, Derives its value from its use alone.Samuel Johnson, Irene, Act III, scene 8, line 28.

Enlarge my life with multitude of days! In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays: Hides from himself its state, and shuns to know, That life protracted is protracted woe.Samuel Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, line 255.

In lifes last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlboroughs eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.Samuel Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, line 315.

Catch, then, oh! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Lifes a short summer—man a flower; He dies—alas! how soon he dies!Samuel Johnson, Winter, An Ode, line 33.

Festimat enim decurrere velox Flosculus angustæ miseræque brevissima vitæ Portio; dum bibimus dum serta unguenta puellas Poscimus obrepit non intellecta senectus.The short bloom of our brief and narrow life flies fast away. While we are calling for flowers and wine and women, old age is upon us. Juvenal, Satires, IX. 127.

A sacred burden is this life ye bear, Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly, Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly; Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.Fanny Kemble, Lines to the Young Gentlemen leaving the Lennox Academy, Mass.

I have fought my fight, I have lived my life, I have drunk my share of wine; From Trier to Coln there was never a knight Led a merrier life than mine.Charles Kingsley, The Knights Leap. Similar lines appear under the picture of Franz Hals, The Laughing Cavalier.

Charles Kingsley, The Knights Leap. Similar lines appear under the picture of Franz Hals, The Laughing Cavalier.

La plupart des hommes emploient la première partie de leur vie à rendre lautre misérable.Most men employ the first part of life to make the other part miserable. Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères, XI.

Life will be lengthened while growing, for Thought is the measure of life.Charles Godfrey Leland, The Return of the Gods, line 85.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, Stanza 1.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, Stanza 4.

Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought!Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Village Blacksmith, Stanza 8.

Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.James Russell Lowell, Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries Ago.

Vita dum superest, bene est.Whilst life remains it is well. Mæcenas, quoted by Seneca the Younger, Epigram 101.

Victuros agimus semper, nec vivimus unquam.We are always beginning to live, but are never living. Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, IV, 899.

— Life living

Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.Tomorrows life is too late. Live today. Martial, Epigrams c. 80-104 AD, I. 15.

Non est, crede mihi sapientis dicere vivam. Sera nimis vita est crastina, vive hodie.It is not, believe me, the act of a wise man to say, I will live. To-morrows life is too late; live to-day. Martial, Epigrams c. 80-104 AD, I. 16. 11.

Cras vives; hodie jam vivere, Postume, serum est. Ille sapit, quisquis, Postume, vixit heri.To-morrow I will live, the fool does say; To-day itselfs too late, the wise lived yesterday. Martial, Epigrams c. 80-104 AD, V. 58. Cowleys translation. Danger of Procrastination. Quoted by Voltaire in Letter to Thieriot.

Martial, Epigrams c. 80-104 AD, V. 58. Cowleys translation. Danger of Procrastination. Quoted by Voltaire in Letter to Thieriot.

He who thinks that the lives of Priam and of Nestor were long is much deceived and mistaken. Life consists not in living, but in enjoying health.Martial, Epigrams c. 80-104 AD, Book VI.

Ampliat ætatis spatium sibi vir bonus: hoc est vivere bis, vita posse priore frui.A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence is to live twice. Martial, Epigrams c. 80-104 AD, X. 23. 7.

On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street, The pageant of life is passing me on multitudinous feet, With a word here of the hills, and a song there of the sea And—the great movement changes—the pageant passes me.John Masefield, All ye that pass by!

While we least think it he prepares his Mate. Mate, and the Kings pawn played, it never ceases, Though all the earth is dust of taken pieces.John Masefield, Widow in the Bye Street, Part I. Last lines.

Man cannot call the brimming instant back; Times an affair of instants spun to days; If man must make an instant gold, or black, Let him, he may; but Time must go his ways. Life may be duller for an instants blaze. Lifes an affair of instants spun to years, Instants are only cause of all these tears.John Masefield, Widow in the Bye Street, Part V.

Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim.Mazzini, Life and Writings, Chapter V.

Il torre altrui la vita È facoltà commune Al più vil della terra; il darla è solo De Numi, e de Regnanti.To take away life is a power which the vilest of the earth have in common; to give it belongs to gods and kings alone. Metastasio, La Clemenza di Tito, III. 7.

A mans best things are nearest him, Lie close about his feet.Richard Monckton Milnes Lord Houghton, The Men of Old, Stanza 7.

Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.Michel de Montaigne, Essays, On Repentance, Book III, Chapter II.

La vie est vaine: Un peu damour, Un peu de haine— Et puis-bonjour!La vie est brève: Un peu despoir, Un peu de rêve— Et puis—bon soir!Life is but jest: A dream, a doom; A gleam, a gloom— And then—good rest!Life is but play; A throb, a tear: A sob, a sneer; And then—good day. Leon de Montenaeken, Peu de Chose et Presque Trop. Nought and too Much. English translation. by Author. Quoted by Du Maurier in Trilby.

Leon de Montenaeken, Peu de Chose et Presque Trop. Nought and too Much. English translation. by Author. Quoted by Du Maurier in Trilby.

Tis not the whole of life to live; Nor all of death to die.James Montgomery, The Issues of Life and Death.

In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon.Doctor Manhattan Watchmen volume XII, written by Alan Moore

Vain were the man, and false as vain, Who said, were he ordained to run His long career of life again He would do all that he had done.Thomas Moore, My Birthday. In a footnote Moore refers to Fontenelie, Si je recommençais ma carrière, je ferai tout ce que jai fait.

Thomas Moore, My Birthday. In a footnote Moore refers to Fontenelie, Si je recommençais ma carrière, je ferai tout ce que jai fait.

Life is a waste of wearisome hours, Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns, And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, Is always the first to be touchd by the thorns.Thomas Moore, Oh! Think not My Spirits are always as Light.

Nor on one string are all lifes jewels strung.William Morris, Life and Death of Jason, Book 17, line 1,170.

I would not live alway; I ask not to stay Where storm after storm rises dark oer the way.William A. Muhlenberg, I would not Live Alway.

Wile some no other cause for life can give But a dull habitude to live.John Oldham, To the Memory of Norwent, Paragraph 5.

Id quoque, quod vivam, munus habere dei. This also, that I live, I consider a gift of God.Ovid, Tristium, I. 1. 20.

This life a theatre we well may call, Where very actor must perform with art, Or laugh it through, and make a farce of all, Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part.Palladas. Epitaph in Palatine Anthology. X. 72. As translated by Robert Bland. From the Greek. Part of this Sir Thomas Shadwell wished to have inscribed on the monument in Westminster Abbey to his father, Thomas Shadwell.

Palladas. Epitaph in Palatine Anthology. X. 72. As translated by Robert Bland. From the Greek. Part of this Sir Thomas Shadwell wished to have inscribed on the monument in Westminster Abbey to his father, Thomas Shadwell.

On seveille, on se léve, on shabille, et lon sort; On rentre, on dine, on soupe, on se couche, et lon dort.One awakens, one rises, one dresses, and one goes forth; One returns, one dines, one sups, one retires and one sleeps. Pierre-Antoine-Augustin de Piis

Natura, vero nihil hominibus brevitate vitæ præstitit melius.Nature has given man no better thing than shortness of life. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, VII. 51. 3.

She went from opera, park, assembly, play, To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day. To part her time twixt reading and bohea, To muse, and spill her solitary tea, Or oer cold coffee trifle with the spoon, Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon.Alexander Pope, Epistle to Miss Blount on Leaving Town, line 13.

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; Youve playd, and lovd, and ate, and drank your fill: Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Comes tittring on, and shoves you from the stage.Alexander Pope, Second Book of Horace, Epistle II, line 322.

Through the sequesterd vale of rural life The venerable patriarch guileless held The tenor of his way.Beilby Porteus,Death, line 109.

Amid two seas, on one small point of land, Wearied, uncertain, and amazed we stand.Matthew Prior, Solomon on the Vanity of Human Wishes, Part III, line 616.

Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks, must mourn; And he alone is blessd who neer was born.Matthew Prior, Solomon on the Vanity of the World, Book III, line 240.

So vanishes our state; so pass our days; So life but opens now, and now decays; The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh, To live is scarce distinguishd from to die.Matthew Prior, Solomon on the Vanity of the World, Book III, line 527.

Half my life is full of sorrow, Half of joy, still fresh and new; One of these lives is a fancy, But the other one is true.Adelaide Anne Procter, Dream-Life.

Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.Psalms, XXXIX. 4.

The wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.Psalms. CIII. 16.

Mans life is like a Winters day: Some only breakfast and away; Others to dinner stay and are full fed, The oldest man but sups and goes to bed. Long is his life who lingers out the day, Who goes the soonest has the least to pay; Death is the Waiter, some few run on tick, And some alas! must pay the bill to Nick! Tho I owed much, I hope long trust is given, And truly mean to pay all bills in Heaven.Epitaph in Barnwell Churchyard, near Cambridge, England.

The romance of life begins and ends with two blank pages. Age and extreme old age.Jean Paul Richter

Der Mensch hat hier dritthalb Minuten, eine zu lächeln—eine zu seufzen—und eine halbe zu lieben: denn mitten in dieser Minute stirbt er.Man has here two and a half minutes—one to smile, one to sigh, and a half to love: for in the midst of this minute he dies. Jean Paul Richter, Hesperus, IV.

Jeder Mensch hat eine Regen-Ecke seines Lebens aus der ihm das schlimme Wetter nachzieht.Every man has a rainy corner of his life out of which foul weather proceeds and follows after him. Jean Paul Richter, Titan, Zykel 123.

Die Parzen und Furien ziehen auch mit verbundnen Händen um das Leben, wie die Grazien und die Sirenen.The Fates and Furies, as well as the Graces and Sirens, glide with linked hands over life. Jean Paul Richter, Titan, Zykel 140.

Nur Thaten geben dem Leben Stärke, nur Maas ihm Reiz.Only deeds give strength to life, only moderation gives it charm. Jean Paul Richter, Titan, Zykel 145.

I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, However I begged at evening When I counted my scanty store.Jessie B. Rittenhouse, My Wage.

I worked for a menials hire, Only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have paid.Jessie B. Rittenhouse, My Wage.

This life is but the passage of a day, This life is but a pang and all is over; But in the life to come which fades not away Every love shall abide and every lover.Christina G. Rossetti, Saints and Angels.

Lifes but a span, or a tale, or a word, That in a trice, or suddaine, is rehearsèd.The Roxburghe Ballads, A Friends Advice, Part II. Edited by William Chappell

Ignavia nemo immortalis factus: neque quisquam parens liberis, uti æterni forent, optavit; magis, uti boni honestique vitam exigerent.No one has become immortal by sloth; nor has any parent prayed that his children should live forever; but rather that they should lead an honorable and upright life. Sallust, Jugurtha, LXXXV.

Say, what is life? Tis to be born, A helpless Babe, to greet the light With a sharp wail, as if the morn Foretold a cloudy noon and night; To weep, to sleep, and weep again, With sunny smiles between; and then?John Godfrey Saxe, The Story of Life.

Wir, wir leben! Unser sind die Stunden Und der Lebende hat Recht.We, we live! ours are the hours, and the living have their claims. Friedrich Schiller, An die Freude, Stanza 1.

— Life living

Nicht der Tummelplatz des Lebens—sein Gehalt bestimmt seinen Werth.Tis not the mere stage of life but the part we play thereon that gives the value. Friedrich Schiller, Fiesco, III. 2.

Nicht seine Freudenseite kehrte dir Das Leben zu.Life did not present its sunny side to thee. Friedrich Schiller, Marie Stuart, II. 3. 136.

Wouldst thou wisely, and with pleasure, Pass the days of lifes short measure, From the slow one counsel take, But a tool of him neer make; Neer as friend the swift one know, Nor the constant one as foe.Friedrich Schiller, Proverbs of Confucius. E. A. Bowrings translation.

Des Lebens Mai blüht einmal und nicht wieder.The May of life blooms once and never again. Friedrich Schiller, Resignation, Stanza 2.

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