Canzone 56, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life
Che 'nanzi al dì de l'ultima partita | Uom beato chiamar non si convene.
Num. XXXVI nell'ed. Marsand, sonetto XLIII nell'ed. Mestica
Sonetto in vita di M. Laura
Variant: Inanzi al dí de l'ultima partita
huom beato chiamar non si convene.
“Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.”
“Call no day happy 'til it is done; call no man happy til he is dead.”
Solzhenitsyn here seems to be paraphrasing Sophocles who expresses similar ideas in Oedipus Rex. This is also a direct reference to Plutarch's line, "call no man fortunate until he is dead," from his "Parallel Lives".
The Oak and the Calf (1975)
“Arrival in the world is really a departure and that, which we call departure, is only a return.”
“Reprise,” p. 50
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: "Forgotten Place”
“A man should build a house with his own hands before he calls himself an engineer.”
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)
letter from Sir Thomas Buxton to his son quoted in "Life of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton" from Sylvanus Urban (ed.) The Gentleman's Magazine" July to December 1848, p. 577
1800s
“Even god doesn't propose to judge a man till his last days, why should you and I?”
“I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life.”
“Call no man happy till he dies.”
Herodotus actually attributes this to Solon in a conversation with King Crœsus.
Variants:
Deem no man happy, until he passes the end of his life without suffering grief
Many very wealthy men are not happy, while many who have but a moderate living are fortunate; and in truth the very rich man who is not happy has two advantages only as compared with the poor man who is fortunate, whereas this latter has many as compared with the rich man who is not happy. The rich man is able better to fulfil his desire, and also to endure a great calamity if it fall upon him; whereas the other has advantage over him in these things which follow: — he is not indeed able equally with the rich man to endure a calamity or to fulfil his desire, but these his good fortune keeps away from him, while he is sound of limb, free from disease, untouched by suffering, the father of fair children and himself of comely form; and if in addition to this he shall end his life well, he is worthy to be called that which thou seekest, namely a happy man; but before he comes to his end it is well to hold back and not to call him yet happy but only fortunate. Now to possess all these things together is impossible for one who is mere man, just as no single land suffices to supply all things for itself, but one thing it has and another it lacks, and the land that has the greatest number of things is the best: so also in the case of a man, no single person is complete in himself, for one thing he has and another he lacks; but whosoever of men continues to the end in possession of the greatest number of these things and then has a gracious ending of his life, he is by me accounted worthy, O king, to receive this name.
The History of Herodotus Book I, Chapter 32 http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/hh1030.htm.
Misattributed
