Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:--
We are as they;
read more

Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:--
We are as they;
Like them we fade away
As doth a leaf.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a
brief sojourn; for what read more

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a
brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses
it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that
one exists for other people.

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,

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.

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.]

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.

The immortal could we cease to contemplate,
The mortal part suggests its every trait.
God laid His read more

The immortal could we cease to contemplate,
The mortal part suggests its every trait.
God laid His fingers on the ivories
Of her pure members as on smoothed keys,
And there out-breathed her spirit's harmonies.

"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."

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.