LIFE
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.
The longer one lives the more he learns.
A narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future, two eternities.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Veiled Prophet. Idea given as a quotation in the Spectator. No. 590, Sept. 6, 1714.
| seealso = (See also Lillo)
| topic = Life
| page = 449
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns,
And the heart that is soonest awake to the
flowers,
[s always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
Moore—Oh! Think not My Spirits are always
as Light.
Nor on one string are all life's jewels strung.
William Morris—Life and Death of Jason.
Bk. 17. L. 1170.
I would not live alway; I ask not to stay
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way.
William A. Muhlenberg—/ would not Live
Alway.
Our days begin with trouble here, our life is
but a span,
And cruel death is always near, so frail a thing is
man.
New England Primer. (1777)
| topic = Life
| page = 449
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>While some no other cause for life can give
But a dull habitude to live.
Oldham—To the Memory of Norwent. Par. 5.
| seealso = (See also Dickens)
| topic = Life
| page = 449
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. III. FitzGerald's Trans.
Ah Love! could you and I with him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire
Would we not shatter it to bits—and then
fie-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire?
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. IX. FrrzGerald's Trans,
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his destin'd Hour and went his way.
OmarKhayy AM-^Rvbaiyat. St. XVII. FrrzGerald's Trans.
I came like Water, and like Wind I go.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. XXVIII.
A Moment's Halt—a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste—
LIFE
And, Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from. Oh, make haste!
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. XLVIII.
FttzGerald's Trans.
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Checker-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. LXLX. FrrzGerald's trans.
| seealso = (See also Huxley)
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 15
| text = And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account should lose or know the type no more:
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has poured
Millions of Bubbles like us and will pour.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. FitzGerald's
Trans. (In the edition of 1889 the second
line reads: Account and mine, should know
the like no more.) <
| seealso = (See also Bacon)
| topic = Life
| page = 449
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky.
But ere the shade of evening close
Is scatter'd on the ground to die.
Claimed by Patrick O'Kelly. The Simile.
Pub. 1824. Authorship doubted. The lines
appeared in a Philadelphia paper about
1815-16, attributed to Richard Henry
Wilde.
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.
(See Quotations under Acting, World)
| topic = Life
| page = 449
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = Condition de l'homme, inconstance, ennui,
inquietude.
| trans = The state of man is inconstancy, ennui,
anxiety.
| author = Pascal
| work = Pensées.
| place = Art. VI. 46.
| note =
| topic = Life
| page = 449
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>On s'eveille, on se leve, on s'habille, et Ton sort;
On rentre, on dine, on soupe, on se couche, et
Ton dort.
One awakens, one rises, one dresses, and one
goes forth;
One returns, one dines, one sups, one retires
and one sleeps.
De Pns.
| seealso = (See also Montenaeken)
| topic = Life
| page = 449
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Natura vero nihil hominibus brevitate vitae
praestitit melius.
Nature has given man no better thing than
shortness of fife.
Pliny the Elder—Historia Naturalis. VII.
. 3.
