
The Usurpation Of Language (1910)
The Alexiad, Preface
Context: The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration; as the playwright [Sophocles] says, it 'brings to light that which was unseen and shrouds from us that which was manifest.' Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against this stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion.
The Usurpation Of Language (1910)
Psalm 90 st. 5.
1710s, "Our God, our help in ages past" (1719)
“The wrinkles on his forehead are the marks which his mighty deeds have engraved.”
Ses rides, sur son front, ont grave ses exploits.
Don Diego, act I, scene i.
Le Cid (1636)
“A man is great by deeds, not by birth.”
“To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history.”
Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V
The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 32
Рѣка временъ въ своемъ стремленьи
Уноситъ всѣ дѣла людей
И топитъ въ пропасти забвенья
Народы, царства и царей.
А если что и остается
Чрезъ звуки лиры и трубы,
То вѣчности жерломъ пожрется
И общей не уйдетъ судьбы!
Lines found at Derzhavin's table after his death.
For another translation, see Time's river in its rushing current
Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 120.