Life

"We sleep, but the loom of life never stops and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up to-morrow."

"The day is short, the work is much."

"We are all but Fellow-Travelers, Along Life's weary way; If any man can play the pipes, In God's name, let him play."

"Life does not proceed by the association and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division."

"For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided."

"Nasci miserum, vivere pœna, angustia mori."

": It is a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to die."

"Alas, how scant the sheaves for all the trouble, The toil, the pain and the resolve sublime— A few full ears; the rest but weeds and stubble, And withered wild-flowers plucked before their time."

"For life is the mirror of king and slave, 'Tis just what we are and do; Then give to the world the best you have, And the best will come back to you."

"There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave, There are souls that are pure and true; Then give to the world the best you have, And the best will come back to you."

"Life, believe, is not a dream, So dark as sages say; Oft a little morning rain Foretells a pleasant day!"

"A little sun, a little rain, A soft wind blowing from the west, And woods and fields are sweet again, And warmth within the mountain's breast A little love, a little trust, A soft impulse, a sudden dream, And life as dry as desert dust, Is fresher than a mountain stream."

"I would not live over my hours past … not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse."

"Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us."

"The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying."

"Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span."

"I know—is all the mourner saith, Knowledge by suffering entereth; And Life is perfected by Death."

"Have you found your life distasteful? My life did, and does, smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again."

"I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength on."

"No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold."

"O Life! thou art a galling load, Along a rough, a weary road, To wretches such as I!"

"O, Life! how pleasant is thy morning, Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning! Cold pausing Caution's lesson scorning, We frisk away, Like schoolboys, at the expected warning, To joy and play."

"Life is but a day at most."

"Did man compute Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er Such hours 'gainst years of life, say, would he name threescore?"

"All is concentred in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being."

"Through life's road, so dim and dirty, I have dragged to three and thirty; What have these years left to me? Nothing, except thirty-three."

"Our life is two-fold; sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence."

"The dust we tread upon was once alive."

"Life is with such all beer and skittles. They are not difficult to please About their victuals."

"Heaven gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness; And those of Youth a seeming length, Proportioned to their sweetness."

"A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one."

"There is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed."

"One life;—a little gleam of Time between two Eternities."

"How many lives we live in one, And how much less than one, in all."

"Bien predica quien bien vive."

": He who lives well is the best preacher."

"On entre, on crie, Et c'est la vie! On bâille, on sort, Et c'est la mort!"

": We come and we cry, and that is life; we yawn and we depart, and that is death!"

"However, while I crawl upon this planet I think myself obliged to do what good I can in my narrow domestic sphere, to all my fellow-creatures, and to wish them all the good I cannot do."

"Brevis a natura nobis vita data est; at memoria bene reditæ vitæ sempiterna."

": The life given us by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal."

"Natura dedit usuram vitæ tanquam pecuniæ nulla præstitua die."

": Nature has lent us life at interest, like money, and has fixed no day for its payment."

"Nemo parum diu vixit, qui virtuis perfectæ perfecto functus est munere."

": No one has lived a short life who has performed its duties with unblemished character."

"To know, to esteem, to love,—and then to part, Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart."

"Life is but thought."

"This life's a hollow bubble, Don't you know? Just a painted piece of trouble, Don't you know? We come to earth to cry, We grow older and we sigh, Older still, and then we die! Don't you know?"

"Life for delays and doubts no time does give, None ever yet made haste enough to live."

"His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right."