“I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.”

A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Context: You are, my Lord, but just entering into the world; I am going out of it. I have played long enough to be heartily tired of the drama. Whether I have acted my part in it well or ill, posterity will judge with more candour than I, or than the present age, with our present passions, can possibly pretend to. For my part, I quit it without a sigh, and submit to the sovereign order without murmuring. The nearer we approach to the goal of life, the better we begin to understand the true value of our existence, and the real weight of our opinions. We set out much in love with both; but we leave much behind us as we advance. We first throw away the tales along with the rattles of our nurses; those of the priest keep their hold a little longer; those of our governors the longest of all. But the passions which prop these opinions are withdrawn one after another; and the cool light of reason, at the setting of our life, shows us what a false splendour played upon these objects during our more sanguine seasons. Happy, my Lord, if, instructed by my experience, and even by my errors, you come early to make such an estimate of things, as may give freedom and ease to your life. I am happy that such an estimate promises me comfort at my death.

Hagakure (c. 1716)

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 40, “Top Designs for the Busy Working Woman” (p. 173)

Source: The Great Gatsby

Source: Stalking the Nightmare

1900s, Love Among the Artists (1900)

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 23, “Deep Waters” (p. 591).

Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: This whole world is one great City, and one is the substance whereof it is fashioned: a certain period indeed there needs must be, while these give place to those; some must perish for others to succeed; some move and some abide: yet all is full of friends—first God, then Men, whom Nature hath bound by ties of kindred each to each. (123).

Source: A Painted House