“Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me
how little now remains”
"A Speech at the Lost-and-Found"
Poems New and Collected (1998), Could Have (1972)
Context: Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me
how little now remains, one first person sing., temporarily
declined in human form, just now making such a fuss
about a blue umbrella left yesterday on a bus.
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Wisława Szymborska 92
Polish writer 1923–2012Related quotes

“Leaves, some the wind scatters on the ground—So is the race of man.”
Leaves, also, are thy children; and leaves, too, are they who cry out so if they are worthy of credit, or bestow their praise, or on the contrary curse, or secretly blame and sneer; and leaves, in like manner, are those who shall receive and transmit a man's fame to after-times. For all such things as these "are produced in the season of spring," as the poet says; then the wind casts them down; then the forest produces other leaves in their places. But a brief existence is common to all things, and yet thou avoidest and pursuest all things as if they would be eternal.
X, 34
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X

La fama che invaghisce a un dolce suono
Voi superbi mortali, e par si bella,
E un'ecco, un sogno, anzi del sogno un'ombra,
Ch'ad ogni vento si dilegua e sgombra.
Canto XIV, stanza 63 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Doctor Who Confidential Series 4, Episode 12, "Friends and Foe" http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/confidential/S4_12 (Doctor Who documentary series, 2005)

Nasruddin said, "I am a man of consistency. Once forty, I remain forty always. When I have answered once, I have answered forever! You cannot lead me astray. I am forty, and whenever you ask you will get the same answer."
Osho, And The Flowers Showered (2003), ISBN 817182210X, p. 204

Prologue, p. 5
Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991)

Così nel tempo che virtù fioria
Ne li antiqui segnori e cavallieri,
Con noi stava allegrezza e cortesia,
E poi fuggirno per strani sentieri,
Sì che un gran tempo smarirno la via,
Né del più ritornar ferno pensieri;
Ora è il mal vento e quel verno compito,
E torna il mondo di virtù fiorito.
Bk. 2, Canto 1, st. 2
Orlando Innamorato

“You'd be surprised how little I knew even up to yesterday”

“Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind.”
Surprised by Joy, l. 1 (1815).