11 quotes
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
I look upon you as a gem of the old rock.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
Time which antiquates Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
Were the happiness of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
Times before you, when even the living men were Antiquities; when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world, could not be properly said, to go unto the greater number.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's Den, and are but Embryon Philosophers.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history.
But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)