
“Let the dead bury the dead? But, the dead can bury no one.”
2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)
2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)
“Let the dead bury the dead? But, the dead can bury no one.”
2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)
Fragment iv.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments
Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 98
“Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.”
I, st. 4
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), A Dialogue of Self and Soul http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1397/
Context: My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known —
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.
In the 1880s, as quoted on an inscription at Vicksburg National Military Park http://jeffreyevanbrooks.blogspot.com/2015/09/sadness-and-hope-along-siege-lines-of.html.
1880s
John Rivers in The Genius and the Goddess (1955)
Context: You can't worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it's hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to every other moment.