“When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.”

— Joseph Addison

Thoughts in Westminster Abbey (1711).

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 "When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider tha…" by Joseph Addison?

Joseph Addison 226

politician, writer and playwright 1672–1719

Related quotes

“There are moments in our lives when we all are kings of some place, some time. Some tomb.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Shared on social media on June 8, 2018.
Quotes as Marcil d'Hirson Garron

“If I have not read a book before, it is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Reading New Books" (1825)
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

“She was beautiful when she died—a hundred years ago.”

Garrett Fort (1900–1945) screenwriter

Prof. Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan)
Dracula's Daughter (1936)

“some we know to be dead even though they walk among us; some are not yet born though they go through all the forms of life; other are hundreds of years old though they call themselves thirty-six”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

“Because of their courage and persistence for many years, we can, today, even set the dates when all humanity will join together to celebrate one of the outstanding human victories of our century.
When that moment comes, we shall, together, rejoice in a common victory over racism, apartheid and white minority rule.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1993)

“Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.”

Johannes Kepler book Mysterium Cosmographicum

Book V, Introduction
Variant translation: It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
As quoted in The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841) by David Brewster, p. 197. This has sometimes been misquoted as "It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
Variant translation: I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker.
As quoted in Calculus. Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), Harmonices Mundi (1618)

“I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.”

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

“Odd, isn’t it? You know when your birthday is, but not your death day, even though you pass the date year after year, never suspecting that some day…”

Mary Downing Hahn (1937) American children's writer

Source: The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall

“This is the highest honor I have received since 60-some years ago, when Angel said "I do."”

Paul Harvey (1918–2009) American broadcaster

On how much his wife "Angel" meant to him, just before receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House (9 November 2005), as quoted in "Paul Harvey's Wife Dies at Age 92" in ABC News (4 May 2008) http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4780941.

“I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"The Sound of the Trees" (1920)
1920s

“When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Joseph Addison 226

Related quotes

Related topics