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 --
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"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."
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.
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.
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.
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.]
Death is that "Tomorrow" for which all our lives are spent waiting!Man is constantly building the "Image."It is an Edifice read more
Death is that "Tomorrow" for which all our lives are spent waiting!Man is constantly building the "Image."It is an Edifice for the entombment of bones!Best to "Realize" the temporal nature of thingsand simply "Do and Die!
When the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box
When the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box
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.
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,
