“This Life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it every where”

This Life, which seems so fair http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/this-life-which-seems-so-fair-2/

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children's breath, Who chase it eve…" by William Drummond of Hawthornden?
William Drummond of Hawthornden photo
William Drummond of Hawthornden 13
British writer 1585–1649

Related quotes

Louis Sullivan photo

“These two happenings seem jointed and interdependent, blended into one like a bubble and its iridescence, and they seem borne along upon a slowly moving air. This air is wonderful past all understanding.”

Louis Sullivan (1856–1924) American architect

The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered (1896)
Context: All things in nature have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are, that distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other.
Unfailingly in nature these shapes express the inner life, the native quality, of the animal, tree, bird, fish, that they present to us; they are so characteristic, so recognizable, that we say simply, it is "natural" it should be so. Yet the moment we peer beneath this surface of things, the moment we look through the tranquil reflection of ourselves and the clouds above us, down into the clear, fluent, unfathomable depth of nature, how startling is the silence of it, how amazing the flow of life, how absorbing the mystery! Unceasingly the essence of things is taking shape in the matter of things, and this unspeakable process we call birth and growth. Awhile the spirit and the matter fade away together, and it is this that we call decadence, death. These two happenings seem jointed and interdependent, blended into one like a bubble and its iridescence, and they seem borne along upon a slowly moving air. This air is wonderful past all understanding.
Yet to the steadfast eye of one standing upon the shore of things, looking chiefly and most lovingly upon that side on which the sun shines and that we feel joyously to be life, the heart is ever gladdened by the beauty, the exquisite spontaneity, with which life seeks and takes on its forms in an accord perfectly responsive to its needs. It seems ever as though the life and the form were absolutely one and inseparable, so adequate is the sense of fulfillment.

James Jeans photo

“And the substance out of which this bubble is blown, the soap-film, is empty space welded onto empty time.”

Source: The Mysterious Universe (1930), p. 100, 1937 ed.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
O. Henry photo

“She had
become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the
air he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Source: The Complete Life of John Hopkins

Edward Coote Pinkney photo
George Walter Thornbury photo

“Man’s life is but a jest,
A dream, a shadow, bubble, air, a vapor at the best.”

George Walter Thornbury (1828–1876) British writer

The Jester’s Sermon. Compare: "Life is a jest and all things show it; I thought so once, but now I know it", John Gay, My own Epitaph; "Life is an empty dream", Robert Browning, Paracelsus, ii.; "Life ’s but a series of trifles at best", Anonymous.

Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland photo
Edward Coote Pinkney photo

“I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.”

Edward Coote Pinkney (1802–1828) American poet, lawyer, sailor, professor, and editor

A Health, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Oliver Goldsmith photo

“By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 153.

William Goldman photo

“Who says life is fair, where is that written?”

Source: The Princess Bride

Related topics