“Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us further than to-day.”
St. 3.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 202
American poet 1807–1882Related quotes
(1837 1) (Vol. 49) Songs - I.
The Monthly Magazine
“Days that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow.”
Wishes for the Supposed Mistress
Trilby (1894). Compare:
:PEU DE CHOSE
La vie est vaine,
Un peu d’amour,
Un peu de haine,
Et puis—Bonjour!
La vie est brève:
Un peu d’espoir,
Un peu de rève
Et puis—Bon soir!
::Léon de Montenaeken; translated by Louise Chandler Moulton as:
:Ah, brief is Life,
Love’s short sweet way,
With dreamings rife,
And then—Good-day!
And Life is vain—
Hope’s vague delight,
Grief’s transient pain,
And then—Good-night.
“Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be,
And think each day that dawns the last you'll see;
For so the hour that greets you unforeseen
Will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen.”
Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras,
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum:
Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora.
Book I, epistle iv, line 12 (translated by John Conington)
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)
Book I, epistle iv, p. 108
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Epistles
“To-day, let us rise and go to our work. To-morrow, we shall rise and go to our reward.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 131.
