Evolution (1895; 1909)
Context: Thus life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When o’er the nursing sod,
The shadows broke and soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.
“I wept that all must die —
"Yet Love," I cried, "doth live, and conquer death —"
And Time passed by,
And breathed on Love, and killed it with his breath
Ere Death was nigh.More bitter far than all
It was to know that Love could change and die —
Hush! for the ages call
"The Love of God lives through eternity,
And conquers all!"”
"The Triumph of Time".
Legends and Lyrics: A Book of Verses (1858)
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Adelaide Anne Procter24
English poet and songwriter 1825–1864Related quotes
Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese
No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace
Thoughts of Prince Andrew Bk XII, Ch. 16
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
“Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century
Pastoral X, lines 98–99.
The Works of Virgil (1697)
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer
Source: Earthsea Books, The Other Wind (2001), Chapter 5, “Rejoining” (p. 286)
“I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Paraphrased variant: I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.
At A Child's Grave (1882)
Context: No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears. It may be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and strain against our hearts could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. Maybe this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate, and I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.
Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author
if that existed
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity
James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist
Part III Poems, "On St. David's Day. To Mrs. E. C. Morrieson." (March 1, 1854)
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882)