“Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.”

—  Bertrand Russell

1900s, A Free Man's Worship (1903)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark." by Bertrand Russell?
Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970

Related quotes

“Self-destruction would be a brief, almost autoerotic free-fall into a great velvet darkness.”

Mark Mirabello (1955) American writer

Source: The Cannibal Within

Andrew Carnegie photo

“It is not the rich man's son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race of life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the "dark horse" in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

Source: Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, 1920, Chapter III

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury photo

“Our life is but a dark and stormy night,
To which sense yields a weak and glimmering light,
While wandering Man thinks he discerneth all
By that which makes him but mistake and fall.”

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648) Anglo-Welsh soldier, diplomat, historian, poet and religious philosopher

"To his Mistress for her True Picture", line 49

William Shakespeare photo

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved”

William Shakespeare book Shakespeare's Sonnets

Source: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Max Beerbohm photo

“For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not for him in the night any so hideous phantasmagoria as will not become, in the clarity of the next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, and he sees nothing dreadful after all. "Why not?" is the sun’s bright message to him, and "Why not indeed?"”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

his answer.” <br class="br">Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IV

“Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

Neb [No-one] (1985)
Context: On seeing his shadow fall on such ancient rocks, he had to question himself in a different context and ask the same old question as before, "Who am I?", and the answer now came more emphatically than ever before, "No-one."
But a no-one with a crown of light about his head. He would remember a verse from Pindar: "Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet."

George William Russell photo

“Let thy young wanderer dream on:
Call him not home.
A door opens, a breath a voice
From the ancient room,
Speaks to him now. Be it dark or bright
He is knit with his doom.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

"Germinal" in Vale and Other Poems (1931)

J. Michael Straczynski photo

“As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever.”

J. Michael Straczynski Passing Through Gethsemane

Lurker&#x27;s Guide to Babylon 5 : &quot;Passing Through Gethsemane : jms speaks&quot; (13 July (2004) http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/048.html. <br class="br">Context: As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each. So I cannot forgive.

Orson Scott Card photo

“The man who has an intelligent child is doomed to spend his life justifying every decision he makes.”

Orson Scott Card book Stone Tables

Stone Tables (1997)

“Strange that it seems more, not less, urgent to play some part in this struggle, this brief effort of animalcules striving to win for their race some increase of lucidity before the ultimate darkness.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter XVI: Epilogue: Back to Earth (p. 188)

Related topics