The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Classical antiquity2 quotes
Life is one long struggle in the dark. — Lucretius · 55 BCAnd life is given to none freehold, but it is leasehold for all. — Lucretius · 55 BCColonial America1 quote
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of. — Benjamin Franklin · 1746Middle Ages1 quote
The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail ahead; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. — Venerable Bede · 731Spanish Golden Age1 quote
What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction. And the greatest good is of slight worth, as all life is a dream, and dreams are dreams. — Pedro Calderon de la Barca · 1635