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Life's Like That (I)
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  Labor & Labour  ·  Labour Party (GB) I  ·  Labour Party (GB) II  ·  Ladder  ·  Lady  ·  Lake & Lake Monsters  ·  Land  ·  Language  ·  Laos  ·  Las Vegas  ·  Last Words  ·  Latin  ·  Laugh & Laughter  ·  Law & Lawyer (I)  ·  Law & Lawyer (II)  ·  Laws of Physics & Science  ·  Lazy & Laziness  ·  Leader & Leadership  ·  Learner & Learning  ·  Lebanon & Lebanese  ·  Lecture & Lecturer  ·  Left Wing  ·  Leg  ·  Leisure  ·  Lend & Lender & Lending  ·  Leprosy  ·  Lesbian & Lesbianism  ·  Letter  ·  Ley Lines  ·  Libel  ·  Liberal & Liberal Party  ·  Liberia  ·  Liberty  ·  Library  ·  Libya & Libyans  ·  Lies & Liar (I)  ·  Lies & Liar (II)  ·  Life & Search For Life (I)  ·  Life & Search For Life (II)  ·  Life After Death  ·  Life's Like That (I)  ·  Life's Like That (II)  ·  Life's Like That (III)  ·  Light  ·  Lightning & Ball Lightning  ·  Like  ·  Limericks  ·  Lincoln, Abraham  ·  Lion  ·  Listen & Listener  ·  Literature  ·  Little  ·  Liverpool  ·  Loan  ·  Local & Civic Government  ·  Loch Ness Monster  ·  Lockerbie Bombing  ·  Logic  ·  London (I)  ·  London (II)  ·  London (III)  ·  Lonely & Loneliness  ·  Look  ·  Lord  ·  Los Angeles  ·  Lose & Loss & Lost  ·  Lot (Bible)  ·  Lottery  ·  Louisiana  ·  Love & Lover  ·  Loyalty  ·  LSD & Acid  ·  Lucifer  ·  Luck & Lucky  ·  Luke (Bible)  ·  Lunacy & Lunatic  ·  Lunar Society  ·  Lunch  ·  Lungs  ·  Lust  ·  Luxury  

★ Life's Like That (I)

There is no wealth but life.  Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration.  That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the function of his own life to the utmost, has always the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.  John Ruskin

 

 

Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life; anarchy and competition the laws of death.  John Ruskin, Unto this Last 1862

 

 

Before the beginning of years

There came to the making of man

Time, with a gift of tears;

Grief, with a glass that ran.  Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon, 1865

 

 

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,

If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;

And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.  Algernon Charles Swinburne, Ave atque Vale

 

 

For the crown of our life as it closes

Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;

No thorns go as deep as the roses,

And love is more cruel than lust.  Algernon Charles Swinburne, Delores

 

 

None would live past years again,

Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;

And, from the dregs of life, think to receive,

What the first sprightly running could not give.  John Dryden, 1631-1700, Aureng-Zebe

 

 

I’ve looked at life from both sides now,

From win and lose and still somehow

It’s life illusions I recall;

I really don’t know life at all …  Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now, song 1967

 

 

We are stardust,

We are golden,

And we got to get ourselves

Back to the garden …  Joni Mitchell, Woodstock, 1969 song

 

 

Death and taxes and childbirth!  There’s never any convenient time for any of them.  Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, 1936

 

I wish I could care what you do or where you go but I can’t … My dear, I don’t give a damn.  ibid.

 

 

After all, tomorrow is another day.  Gone with the Wind 1939 starring Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh & Leslie Howard & Olivia de Haviland & Thomas Mitchell & Barbara Mitchell & Evelyn Keyes & Ann Rutherford & George Reeves & Fred Crane & Hattie McDaniel & Alicia Rhett et al, director Victor Fleming

 

 

The fever called ‘Living’

Is conquered at last.  Edgar Allan Poe, For Annie, 1849

 

Thank Heaven!  The crisis

The danger is past, and the lingering illness is over at last

And the fever called Living is conquered at last.  ibid.

 

 

Windbags can be right.  Aphorists can be wrong.  It is a tough world.  James Fenton, The Times 21st February 1985

 

 

Why live we idly here?  William Shakespeare, I Henry VI I ii 13, Rene to Alencon and Charles

 

 

If there were reason for these miseries,

Then into limits could I bind thy woes.

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth oerflow?  William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus III i 218-220, Titus to Marcus

 

When will this fearful slumber have an end? ...

Now is a time to storm!  ibid.  III i 251 & 264, Titus to Marcus & Marcus to Titus

 

Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!

Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?  ibid.  IV iv 50-51, Saturnius to Clown

 

 

Who can be patient in such extremes?  William Shakespeare, Richard Duke of York I i 216, Queen Margaret to King et al

 

For what is this world but grief and woe?

O God!  Methinks it were a happy life

To be not better than a homely swain.  ibid.  II v 20-22, King Henrys soliloquy

 

Ah, what a life were this!  How sweet!  How lovely!  ibid.  II v 41, King Henrys soliloquy

 

Who shall hinder me?

I will despair, and be at enmity

With cozening hope.  He is a flatterer,

A parasite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would dissolve the bonds of life,

Which false hope lingers in extremity.  ibid.  II ii 67-72, Queen to Bushy et al

 

O piteous spectacle!  O bloody times!  ibid.  II v 73, King Henry to soldier

 

Alack the heavy day,

That I have worn so many winters out

And know not now what name to call myself!  ibid.  IV i 247-249, Richard to Northumberland

 

 

My charity is outrage; life, my shame.  William Shakespeare, Richard III I iii 275, Queen Margaret to Richard Gloucester et al

 

 

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity

We bid be quiet when we hear it cry.

But were we burdened with like weight of pain,

As much or more we should ourselves complain.  William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors II i 34-37

 

 

We cannot cross the cause why we were born.  William Shakespeare, Loves Labours Lost IV iii 216

 

 

What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?  

This torture should be roared in dismal hell.  William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet III ii 43-44, Juliet to Nurse

 

Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems

Upon so soft a subject as myself.  ibid.  III v 209-210, Juliet to self

 

The world is not thy friend, nor the worlds law.  ibid.  V ii 72, Romeo to Apothecary

 

Live and be prosperous.  ibid.  V iii 42, Romeo to Balthasar

 

 

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,

Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.  William Shakespeare III iv 108, King John

 

 

The time of life is short.  William Shakespeare, I Henry IV V ii 81, Hotspur

 

But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool;

And time, that takes survey of all the world,

Must have a stop.  ibid.  V iv 81

 

 

There is no measure in the occasion that breeds

it, therefore the sadness is without limit.  William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing I ii 3-4, Conrad to Don John

 

 

Gloucester, tis true that we are in great danger;

The greater therefore should our courage be ...

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out –

For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,

Which is both beautiful and good husbandry,

Besides, there are our outward consciences,

And preachers to us all, admonishing

That we should dress us fairly for our end.

Thus may we gather honey from the weed

And make a moral of the devil himself.  William Shakespeare, Henry V IV i 1-14, King Harry to Gloucester

 

 

I cannot tell what you and other men

Think of this life.  William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar I ii 95-96

 

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.  ibid.  IV iii 217

 

 

Live a little, comfort a little, cheer thyself a little.  William Shakespeare, As You Like It II vi 5, Orlando to Adam

 

Duke Senior: Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy.

This wide and universal theatre.

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

Wherein we play in.

 

Jaques: All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.  ibid.  II vii @135

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