Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life
“Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy’d the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes?”
—
Matthew Arnold
,
book
Empedocles on Etna
Act I, sc. ii
Empedocles on Etna (1852)
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To have enjoy’d the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, t…" by Matthew Arnold?
Matthew Arnold 166
English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector… 1822–1888Related quotes
Source: True at First Light (1999), Ch. 10
G. K. Chesterton
(1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist
Poems (1917), The Great Minimum
Context: It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.
It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.
“The sun is gone
But I have a light”
Kurt Cobain
(1967–1994) American musician and artist
Dumb.
Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)
Henry Drummond
(1851–1897) Scottish evangelist, writer and lecturer
Variant: You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments when you really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
Constantine P. Cavafy
(1863–1933) Greek poet
The First Step http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=145&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done is a glorious thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it is a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
Margrethe II of Denmark
(1940) Queen of Denmark
On being a female monarch, interview with Bo Lidegaard, 'Politiken' Partially available online http://politiken.dk/indland/ECE1495013/dronningen-opgaven-som-regent-har-man-for-livet/ (01 January 2012).
Life Philosophy
“people are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives”
Helen Prejean
(1939) advocate for the abolition of the death penalty