“Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,
A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,
One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1327–1329 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
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Aeschylus119
ancient Athenian playwright -525–-456 BCRelated quotes
John Fletcher The Honest Man's Fortune
Epilogue. Compare: "Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular all his life long", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2, memb. 1, subsect. 2.
The Honest Man's Fortune, (1613; published 1647)
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter
TED Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/roger_ebert_remaking_my_voice.html (March 2011) <br class="br">Context: It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality. That's why writing on the Internet has become a life-saver for me. My ability to think and write have not been affected. And on the Web, my real voice finds expression.
“Creatures of a day! What is a man?
What is he not? A dream of a shadow
Is our mortal being.”
Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet
Pythian 8, line 95-8; pages 162-3. (446 BC)
Context: Creatures of a day! What is a man?
What is he not? A dream of a shadow
Is our mortal being. But when there comes to men
A gleam of splendour given of Heaven,
Then rests on them a light of glory
And blesséd are their days.
Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer
Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet
Source: Prologue to Mr. Addison's Cato (1713), Line 21. Pope also uses the reference, "Like Cato, give his little Senate laws", in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1734), Prologue to Imitations of Horace.