“The ages roll
Forward; and forward with them draw my soul
Into Time’s infinite sea.
And to be glad or sad I care no more;
But to have done and to have been before
I cease to do and be!”

—  Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

The Wanderer, Book iv, Stanza 9, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

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Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton photo
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton 14
English statesman and poet 1831–1891

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