“Said one among them — "Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta'en
And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again."”
The Rubaiyat (1120)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Omar Khayyám94
Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer 1048–1131Related quotes
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist
Chapter VI http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca3t.html <br class="br">1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
Bk. III, ch. 8.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)
Context: But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for many other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping Appearances, SPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and yet to blind it, — lie all-embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp and woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavor to strip them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder for moments, and look through.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=807&chapter=88152&layout=html&Itemid=27 (6 January 1816) ME 14:384 <br class="br">1810s <br class="br">Context: Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks. The American mind is now in that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history of other nations. We are under the bank bubble, as England was under the South Sea bubble, France under the Mississippi bubble, and as every nation is liable to be, under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard. We are now taught to believe that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. It is vain for common sense to urge that nothing can produce nothing; that it is an idle dream to believe in a philosopher’s stone which is to turn everything into gold, and to redeem man from the original sentence of his Maker, “in the sweat of his brow shall he eat his bread.”
““I am a beggar.”
“You are a travesty,” said Titus, “and when you die the earth will breathe again.””
Mervyn Peake book Titus Alone
Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 16 (p. 829)