You May Also Like / View all maxioms
This is the spot where I am mortal.
[Ger., Hier ist die Stelle wo ich sterblich bin.]
This is the spot where I am mortal.
[Ger., Hier ist die Stelle wo ich sterblich bin.]
You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is read more
You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that. -- Jean Valjean --
Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like the flame read more
Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like the flame of a candle, I say, is a gloriously fine thing. It makes us sober; it makes us a little sad; and many of us it makes poetic. But above all,
"O Charidas, what of the underworld?"
"Great darkness."
"And what of the resurrection?"
"A read more
"O Charidas, what of the underworld?"
"Great darkness."
"And what of the resurrection?"
"A lie."
"And Pluto?"
"A fable; we perish utterly."
That flesh is but the glasse, which holds the dust
That measures all our time; which also shall
read more
That flesh is but the glasse, which holds the dust
That measures all our time; which also shall
Be crumbled into dust.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, read more
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve,
In all the magnanimity of thought;
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.
And why? because he thinks himself immortal,
All men think all men mortal but themselves.
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, read more
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.
Life in a box is better than no life at all ... I expect.
Life in a box is better than no life at all ... I expect.
To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no
less are thoughts of mortality read more
To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no
less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul.