Edward Young Quotes

What is this world? A mere curl of smoke for the wind to scatter.

A human being is only breath and shadow.

What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough; for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?

Man - life in general - seems irrelevant to the workings of the universe: a mere smudge of water, grease, and carbon on a pinpoint planet circling a star of no special consequence.

I feel our relationship to life, to the rest of the world, is very tenuous. It feels fleeting.

If we one day cease to exist, what will be remarkable is that we were ever here at all.

All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again.

We are occupants. No one has any lasting purchase on life or on the planet.

One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish.

The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. The destruction of Troy. The fall of the petals from fruit trees in blossom. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence - that is beautiful.

Life is a bubble in a lake, that glitters for an instant, bursts, and leaves not even a blur on the water; it is the leap of a minnow, which sends a tiny ripple trembling for a few inches.

I know simply that the sky will last longer than I.

Life is a memory, and then it is nothing.

Life is a frail moth flying Caught in the web of the years that pass.

There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands. And yet, this pouring, this flood of encounters, struggles, dreams...

We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.

Mortalhood is a fine state to visit, but you'd better not call it home.

Life is but a day; A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way From a tree's summit.

The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.

The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.

I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust