“Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!”

—  Joseph Addison , book Cato

Act V, scene i
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

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 "Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes …" by Joseph Addison?
Joseph Addison photo
Joseph Addison 226
politician, writer and playwright 1672–1719

Related quotes

Joseph Addison photo
William Shakespeare photo
Frederick William Robertson photo
John Lennon photo

“If people take any notice of what we say, we say we've been through the drug scene, man, and there's nothing like being straight.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

The Dick Cavett Show (24 September 1971)

Marcus Aurelius photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“May it not be that all the thoughts that have ever passed through the Supreme Consciousness still subsist therein? In Him, who is eternal, is not all existence eternalized?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VII : Love, Suffering, Pity
Context: "God does not think, He creates; He does not exist, He is eternal," wrote Kierkegaard (Afslutende uvidenskabelige Efterskrift); but perhaps it is more exact to say with Mazzini, the mystic of the Italian city, that "God is great because his thought is action" (Ai giovani d'Italila), because with Him to think is to create, and He gives existence to that which exists in His thought by the mere fact of thinking it, and the impossible is unthinkable by God. It is not written in the Scriptures that God creates with His word — that is to say, with His thought — and that by this, by His Word, He made everything that exists? And what God has once made does He ever forget? May it not be that all the thoughts that have ever passed through the Supreme Consciousness still subsist therein? In Him, who is eternal, is not all existence eternalized?

Albert Pike photo

“We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.”

Albert Pike (1809–1891) Confederate States Army general and Freemason
Matthew Arnold photo

“How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!
Again — thou hearest?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

"Philomela" (1853), st. 3

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo

“But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity”

No. XIV
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile —her look —her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Related topics