Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span.

 

Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span.
--
Britannia’s Pastorals (1613), Book i. Song 2. Compare: "Who then to frail mortality shall trust/ But limns on water, or but writes in dust", Francis Bacon, The World.

 

William Browne

» William Browne - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

The world's a bubble, and the life of man
Less than a span.

 

Francis Bacon

 

Greenspan's reaction with regard to the stock-market bubble has caused two more bubbles to grow: a real-estate bubble and a consumer-debt bubble... History will judge him one of the worst Central Bankers ever.

 

Alan Greenspan

 

Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much, if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?...I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing; but the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing; but the man who lives the span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning- that, I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here.

 

Chaim Potok

 

How slowly I have made my way in life! How much is still to be done! How little worth — outwardly speaking — is all that I have achieved! The bubble reputation is as much a bubble in literature as in war, and I should not be one whit the happier if mine were world-wide and time-long than I was when nobody but yourself had faith in me.
The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and, lastly, the solid cash.

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

Krugman [...] was not cheerfully advocating a housing bubble, but instead he was glumly saying that the only way he could see to get out of the recession would be for such a bubble to occur.

 

Paul Krugman