Our lives ... are but a little while, so let them run as sweetly as you can, and give no thought to grief from day to day. For time is not concerned to keep our hopes, but hurries on its business, and is gone.

Life is but a day; A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way From a tree's summit.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes-or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two-is gone.

Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.

We are things of a day. What are we? What are we not? The shadow of a dream is man, no more.

Joy and sorrow, beauty and deformity, equally pass away.

No reliance can be placed on the friendship of kings, nor vain hope put in the melodious voice of boys; for that passes away like a vision, and this vanishes like a dream.

We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure.

The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.