Chapter LESSON to LIFE of Index by Grocott's Quotations - Alpha

’Tis not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that’s new:
Each day’s a mistress, unenjoyed before;
Like travellers we’re pleased with seeing more.
Did you but know what joys your way attend,
You would not hurry to your journey’s end.

Dryden.—Aurengzebe, Act IV. Scene 1.

Reflect that life, like every other blessing,
Derives its value from its use alone;
Not for itself, but for a nobler end,
Th’ Eternal gave it, and that end is virtue.

Dr. Johnson.—Irene, Act III. Scene 8.

Thou hast nor youth, nor age;—
But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both.—

What’s yet in this,

That bears the name of life? yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death: yet death we
That makes these odds all even.

Shakespeare.—Measure for Measure, Act III. Scene 1. (The Duke to Claudio.)

LIFE.—Oppress’d with grief, oppress’d with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh:
O Life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!

Burns.—Despondency, Verse 1.

In life’s last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!
From Marlborough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show.

Dr. Johnson.—Vanity of Human Wishes, Line 315.

Comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.

Milton.—Lycidas, Line 75.

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act II. Scene III. (To Lenox.)

She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where’er I turned mine eye,
The morning-star of Memory.

Byron.—The Giaour.

Take not away the life you cannot give,
For all things have an equal right to live.

Dryden.—Pythagorean Phil.

Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: It is a tale,
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act V. Scene 5. (On hearing of his Wife’s death.)