LIFE
So likewise all this life of martall men,
What is it but a certaine kynde of stage plaie?
Where men come forthe disguised one in one arraie,
An other in an other eche plaiying his part.
Life is short, yet sweet.
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 Attar's Mantikrut-Tair. (Bird Parliament.)
In Letters and Literary Remains of FitzGerall. Vol. 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.
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.
Benj. Franklin. In his Life.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander
time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
We live merely on the crust or rind of things.
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."
How short is life! how frail is human trust!
Lebe, wie Du, wenn du stirbst,
Wunschen wirst, gelebt zu haben.
Live in such a way as, when you come to
die, you will wish to have lived.
We are in this life as it were in another man's
house. ... In heaven is our home, in the
world is our Inn: do not so entertain thyself in
the Inn of this world for a day as to have thy
mind withdrawn from longing after thy heavenly
Die uns das Leben gaben, herrliche Gefuhle,
Erstarren in dem irdischen Gewuhle.
The fine emotions whence our lives we mold
Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.
Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie
Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum.
My worthy friend, gray are all theories
And green alone Life's golden tree.
Ein unniitz Leben ist ein friiher Tod.
A useless life is an early death.
Singet nicht in Trauertonen.
Sing it not in mournful numbers.
All the bloomy flush of life is fled.
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.
I would live the same life over if I had to live again
And the chances are I go where most men go.
Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone:
Kindness in another's trouble
Courage in our own.
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Along the cool sequestered vale of life,
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Qui n'a pas vecu dans les annees voisines de
1789 ne sait pas ce que c'est le palisir de vivre.
Whoever did not live in the years neighboring 1789 does not know what the pleasure of
living means.
Life's little ironies.
[George Herbert] a conspicuous example of
plain living and high thinking.
Who but knows
How it goes!
Life's a last year's Nightingale,
Love's a last year's rose.