Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Life
Life is probation: mortal man was made
To solve the solemn problem—right or wrong.
John Quincy Adams.—Written in an Autograph Album, Jan. 1, 1828.
Life, as we call it, is nothing but the edge of the boundless ocean of existence where it comes on soundings.
Holmes.—The Professor at the Breakfast Table, Chap. V.
I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.
Ellen Sturgis Hooper.—Life a Duty.
Life? ’Tis the story of love and troubles,
Of troubles and love, that travel together
The round world through.
Joaquin Miller.—Life.
Men’s lives, like oceans, change
In shifting tides, and ebb from either shore
Till the strong planet draws them on once more.
Stedman.—The Blameless Prince, Stanza 59.
The life that I aspire to live
No man proposeth me;
Only the promise of my heart
Wears its emblazonry.
Henry D. Thoreau.—“The Dial,” Oct. 1842.