“So from the heights of Will
Life's parting stream descends,
And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
Each widening torrent bends,

From the same cradle's side,
From the same mother's knee,
—One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
One to the Peaceful Sea!”

"The Two Streams", Ch. VI.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Nov. 10, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "So from the heights of Will Life's parting stream descends, And, as a moment turns its slender rill, Each widening t…" by Oliver Wendell Holmes?
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes 135
Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894

Related quotes

“When the noisy tide receded
from the shore
the frozen shiny sands suddenly moved
beneath her feer.
The girl standing knee-deep in water
came to herself and mused:
'How familiar is this moment!'”

Parveen Shakir (1952–1994) Pakistani writer and poet

Sessions of Sweet, Silent Thought: translated by Mirza Nehal Ahmad Baig, Poem no. 16, p. 26
Poetry, Familiarity

John Jay photo
Joy Harjo photo

“Each of us is descended from poetry ancestors. It’s the same for any art, any occupation. There is a lineage of style, knowledge and culture passed from generation to generation, one artist to another. Ultimately all poetry is related in the family tree of poetry…”

Joy Harjo (1951) American writer

On her poetic lineage in “An Interview with Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate” https://poets.org/text/interview-joy-harjo-us-poet-laureate?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIiJP5naHW5QIV0Rx9Ch0tGgkkEAAYASAAEgIJD_D_BwE in Poets.org (2019 Mar 31)

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Diophantus photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
John Paul Jones photo

“That flag and I are twins, born in the same hour from the same womb of destiny. We cannot be parted in life or in death.”

John Paul Jones (1747–1792) American naval officer

This statement was attributed to Jones in a 1900 biography by Augustus C. Buell which contains much material now believed to have been fabricated by Buell.
Misattributed
Variant: That flag and I are twins. We were born at the same hour. We cannot be parted in life or death. So long as we float, we shall float together.

Ethan Allen photo

“Physical evils are in nature inseparable from animal life, they commenced existence with it, and are its concomitants through life; so that the same nature which gives being to the one, gives birth to the other also; the one is not before or after the other, but they are coexistent together, and contemporaries; and as they began existence in a necessary dependance on each other, so they terminate together in death and dissolution.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. III Section IV - Of Physical Evils
Context: Physical evils are in nature inseparable from animal life, they commenced existence with it, and are its concomitants through life; so that the same nature which gives being to the one, gives birth to the other also; the one is not before or after the other, but they are coexistent together, and contemporaries; and as they began existence in a necessary dependance on each other, so they terminate together in death and dissolution. This is the original order to which animal nature is subjected, as applied to every species of it. The beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, with reptiles, and all manner of beings, which are possessed with animal life; nor is pain, sickness, or mortality any part of God's Punishment for sin. On the other hand sensual happiness is no part of the reward of virtue: to reward moral actions with a glass of wine or a shoulder of mutton, would be as inadequate, as to measure a triangle with sound, for virtue and vice pertain to the mind, and their merits or demerits have their just effects on the conscience, as has been before evinced: but animal gratifications are common to the human race indiscriminately, and also, to the beasts of the field: and physical evils as promiscuously and universally extend to the whole, so "That there is no knowing good or evil by all that is before us, for all is vanity." It was not among the number of possibles, that animal life should be exempted from mortality: omnipotence itself could not have made it capable of externalization and indissolubility; for the self same nature which constitutes animal life, subjects it to decay and dissolution; so that the one cannot be without the other, any more than there could be a compact number of mountains without valleys, or that I could exist and not exist at the same time, or that God should effect any other contradiction in nature...

Related topics