“Creatures of a day! What is a man?
What is he not? A dream of a shadow
Is our mortal being.”
Pythian 8, line 95-8; pages 162-3. (446 BC)
Context: Creatures of a day! What is a man?
What is he not? A dream of a shadow
Is our mortal being. But when there comes to men
A gleam of splendour given of Heaven,
Then rests on them a light of glory
And blesséd are their days.
Original
ἐπάμεροι: τί δέ τις;<br/>τί δ᾽ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ<br/>ἄνθρωπος. ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν αἴγλα διόσδοτος ἔλθῃ,<br/>λαμπρὸν φέγγος ἔπεστιν ἀνδρῶν καὶ μείλιχος αἰών
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Pindar 13
Ancient Greek poet -517–-437 BCRelated quotes

This quote is itself quoting Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman in the film Grey Owl (1999)
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
Introduction
The Rebel (1951)

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis

¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño;
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son.
Variant:
What is this life? A frenzy, an illusion,
A shadow, a delirium, a fiction.
The greatest good's but little, and this life
Is but a dream, and dreams are only dreams.
(trans. Roy Campbell)
Segismundo, Act II, l. 1195.
La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream)