“I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust, I forgot to ask that they be years of youth.”

Source: Metamorphoses

Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust, I forgot to a…" by Ovid?
Ovid photo
Ovid 120
Roman poet -43–17 BC

Related quotes

Ovid photo

“Pointing to a pile of dust, that had collected, I foolishly begged to have as many anniversaries of my birth, as were represented by the dust. But I forgot to ask that the years should be accompanied by youth.”
Ego pulveris hausti ostendens cumulum, quot haberet corpora pulvis, tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi; excidit, ut peterem iuvenes quoque protinus annos.

Book XIV, lines 136–139; translation by A. S. Kline
Metamorphoses (Transformations)

David Levithan photo

“We do not start as dust. We do not end as dust. We make more than dust.

That's all we ask of you. Make more than dust.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

David Levithan photo
John Fante photo

“Ask the dust on the road! Ask the Joshua trees standing alone where the Mojave begins. Ask them about Camilla Lopez, and they will whisper her name.”

John Fante (1909–1983) 1909–1983; American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Italian descent

Source: The Big Hunger

Halldór Laxness photo

“Dust, who is not dust? I am dust. But I am your Member of Parliament, nevertheless.”

Bui Arland
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Cassandra Clare photo
Carl Sandburg photo

“When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into
the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and
the assassin… in the dust, in the cool tombs.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

"Cool Tombs" (1918)

John Fante photo
Sterling Hayden photo

“The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.”

Sterling Hayden (1916–1986) American actor

Book I : Man at Bay, Ch. 5
Wanderer (1963)
Context: "I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it." What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine — and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need — really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in — and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all — in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? What follows is not a blueprint for the man entombed; not many people find themselves in a situation paying a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year (as if any man is worth that much). But the struggle is relative: it's a lot hard to walk away from an income like that than from a fraction thereof.

George Bernard Shaw photo

“I am no mere chance pile of flesh and bone: if I were only that, I should fall into corruption and dust before your eyes. I am the embodiment of a thought of God: I am the Word made flesh: that is what holds me together standing before you in the image of God.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Jesus, as portrayed in Preface, Difference Between Reader And Spectator
1930s, On the Rocks (1933)
Context: I am no mere chance pile of flesh and bone: if I were only that, I should fall into corruption and dust before your eyes. I am the embodiment of a thought of God: I am the Word made flesh: that is what holds me together standing before you in the image of God. … The Word is God. And God is within you. … In so far as you know the truth you have it from my God, who is your heavenly father and mine. He has many names and his nature is manifold. … It is by children who are wiser than their fathers, subjects who are wiser than their emperors, beggars and vagrants who are wiser than their priests, that men rise from being beasts of prey to believing in me and being saved. … By their fruits ye shall know them. Beware how you kill a thought that is new to you. For that thought may be the foundation of the kingdom of God on earth.

Related topics