Page:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu/485

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LIFE

1

The drama's laws the drama's patrons give.
For we that live to please must please to live.

Samuel JohnsonPrologue to opening of Drury Lane Theatre. (1747)
(See also Bacon)


2

"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 JohnsonVanity of Human Wishes. L. 255.


3

In life's last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!
From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show.

Samuel JohnsonVanity of Human Wishes. L. 315.


4

Catch, then, oh! catch the transient hour,
Improve each moment as it flies;
Life's a short summer—man a flower;
He dies—alas! how soon he dies!

Samuel JohnsonWinter. An Ode. L. 33.


5

Our whole life is like a play.

Ben JonsonDiscoveries de Vita Humana.


5

Festinat enim decurrere velox
Flosculus angustse misereeque brevissima vitse
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.</poem> Juvenal—Satires. IX. 127. </poem>


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.

Frances Anne Kemble—Lines to the Young Gentlemen leaving the Lennox Academy, Mass. </poem>


8

I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I have drunk my share of wine;
From Trier to Coin there was never a knight
Led a merrier life than mine.

Charles KingsleyThe Knight's Leap. Similar lines appear under the picture of Franz Hals, The Laughing Cavalier.


La plupart des hommes emploient la premiere partie de leur vie a rendre l'autre miserable.
Most men employ the first part of life to make the other part miserable.
La Bruyère—Les Caractères. XI.


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


What shall we call this undetermin'd state,
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless oceans,
That whence we came, and that to which we tend?
Lillo—Arden of Feversham. Act III. Sc. 2.
 | seealso = (See also Carlyle, Moore, Pope, Prior,
Wesley, Young
)


LIFE

This life of ours is a wild aeolian harp of ma ny a
joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual
wail, as of souls in pain.
 | author = Longfellow
 | work = Christus. The Golden Legend. Pt.rv. st. 2.

.


Love is sunshine, hate is shadow.
Life is checkered shade and sunshine.
 | author = Longfellow
 | work = Hiawatha. Pt. X. Hiawatha's Wooing. L. 265.


Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares!
 | author = Longfellow
 | work = Maidenhood. St. 9.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
 | author = Longfellow
 | work = A Psalm of Life. St. 1.
 | seealso = (See also Goethe)
 | topic = Life
 | page = 447
}}

{{Hoyt quote
 | num =
 | text = <poem>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.
 | author = Longfellow
 | work = A Psalm of Life. St. 4.
 | seealso = (See also Baudelaire)
 | topic = Life
 | page = 447
}}

{{Hoyt quote
 | num =
 | text = <poem>Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!

LongfellowThe Village Blacksmith. St. 8.


Live and think.

Samuel LoverFather Roach.


Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.

LowellAmong my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries Ago.


Our life must once have end; in vain we fly
From following Fate; e'en now, e'en now, we die.

LucretiusDe Rerum Natura 3 1093 (Creech tr.).


<poem>Vita dum superest, bene est.

Whilst life remains it is well. Maecenas. Quoted by Seneca. Ep. 101.

(See also Quotations under Hope)


<poem>An ardent throng, we have wandered long,

We have searched the centuries through, In flaming pride, we have fought and died, To keep its memory true. We fight and die, but our hopes beat high, In spite of the toil and tears, For we catch the gleam of our vanished dream Down the path of the Untrod Years. Wilma Kate McFabland—The Untrod Years. Pub. in Methodist Journal. July. 1912. y '


Victuros agimus semper, nee vivimus unquam.

We are always beginning to live, but are never living.

ManiliusAstronomica. IV. 899.