"Human Frailty", line 21 (1779).
“Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.”
Matthew Prior (1664–1721) British diplomat, poet
Solomon on the Vanity of the World, book iii, line 240; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician
Josephus Daniels, ambassador to Mexico, sent this quotation to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 1, 1936, in a note of New Year greetings, with this comment: "Here is an expression from Holmes which, if it has missed you, is so good you may find a use for it in one of your 'fireside' talks". Reported in Carroll Kilpatrick, ed., Roosevelt and Daniels (1952), p. 159.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)
Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 115
“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
“We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time.”
Norman Mailer book Ancient Evenings
Ancient Evenings (1983) Last lines
Context: We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods.
“Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.”
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer
Attributed in Fun Fitness for Families (2005) by James Steffen, p. 24 and later publications; also attributed to Helmut Schmidt, in The 7 Ultimate Secrets to Weight Loss (2011) by Natasa Denman, p. 31 and later publications.
Disputed
“Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.”
Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian
Fragment 288. (Plumptre's translation, as cited in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 1906)
Variant: Heaven never helps the man who will not act.
“The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.”
Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba
Variant: Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
Source: Leaves of Grass
