“Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; and now I know it.”

—  John Gay

My Own Epitaph, inscribed on Gay’s monument in Westminster Abbey; also quoted as "I thought so once; but now I know it".
Variant: Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, and now I know it.

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John Gay 56
English poet and playwright 1685–1732

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