“Truly, human life is as ephemeral as dew and as brief as lightning.”
In a Grove (1922), quoted in A Study Guide for Ryunosuke Akutagawa's "In a Grove" https://books.google.it/books?id=EAPQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT13 (Gale, 2017).
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Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 2
Japanese writer 1892–1927Related quotes
 
                            
                        
                        
                        “What is not ephemeral in individual life, if life itself is fleeting like a dream.”
 
                            
                        
                        
                        The Cosmos as a Poem (2010)
 
                            
                        
                        
                        “A government cannot be truly just without affirming the intrinsic value of human life.”
Source: God and Government: An Insider's View on the Boundaries between Faith and Politics
 
                            
                        
                        
                        "Irish Essays. Ecce, Convertimur ad Gentes" (1882)
 
                            
                        
                        
                        
                                
                                    “Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Bk. I, l. 210-214. 
 Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) 
Context: Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning. His last word was, 'Love–'
'Love, my child, love, love!'–(then he had done with grief)
'Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,
And none was left to love in all the world.
                                    
 
                            
                        
                        
                        “To live your brief life rightly, isn't that enough?”
                                        
                                        Hays translation 
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 31
                                    
 
                            
                        
                        
                        “Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
                                        
                                        45 
 The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)
                                    
 
        
     
                             
                            