“Beautiful women, as experienced men know,
Are but darkness wrapped in dazzling light aglow.
A life of friv'lous youth and worried age,
Its futile course to futile death will flow.”

—  Al-Mutanabbi

A Young Soul

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Beautiful women, as experienced men know, Are but darkness wrapped in dazzling light aglow. A life of friv'lous youth…" by Al-Mutanabbi?
Al-Mutanabbi photo
Al-Mutanabbi 13
Arabic poet from the Abbasid era 915–965

Related quotes

Newton Lee photo

“If the meaning of life is futility, human longevity loses its luster.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

Yukio Mishima photo
Shan Sa photo
Michael Shea photo

“While it is foolish to deny the dark around us, it is futile to exaggerate it.”

Prologue (p. 8)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

Wisława Szymborska photo

“I felt age within me. Distance.
The futility of wandering. Torpor.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"Lot's Wife"
Poems New and Collected (1998), A Large Number (1976)
Context: I felt age within me. Distance.
The futility of wandering. Torpor.
I looked back setting my bundle down.
I looked back not knowing where to set my foot.
Serpents appeared on my path,
spiders, field mice, baby vultures.
They were neither good nor evil now — every living thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.

“maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

Alastair Reynolds photo

“There’s nothing like a stupid, accidental death to remind you of the supreme futility of everything.”

Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer

Death’s Door (p. 229)
Short fiction, Belladonna Nights and Other Stories (2021)

Stephen R. Donaldson photo

“Futility is the defining characteristic of life. Pain is proof of existence”

Stephen R. Donaldson (1947) Novelist

Thomas Covenant

Stefan Zweig photo

“Life is futile unless it be directed towards a definite goal.”

Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman (1927)

Related topics