All things to their decline do tend,
All falls, expires, comes to its end:
Man dies, iron rusts, wood rots away,
Tower sinks, wall falls, rose has its day.
Horse stumbles, cloth wears out apace,
No work of hands leaves lasting trace.

— Wace

Tote rien se torne en déclin,
Tot chiet, tot meurt, tot vait à fin:
Hom muert, fer use, fust porrist,
Tur font, mur chiet, rose flaistrist,
Cheval trebusche, drap viésist:
Tot ovre fet od mainz périst.

Original text (French)

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None lord it o'er the land but they who help themselves.

Here endeth Master Wace his book;
Who wanteth more to himself must look.

Who would remember his forbears,
What deeds, what words, what life was theirs,
Must chronicles and annals read
And histories written for his need.

Wit is more than strength! Muscle is good, but craft is better. Skill devises means when strength fails. Cunning and engines bring many matters to a good end, that strength would not venture even to begin.

These heroes twain, these conquerors grand,
Who took and kept full many a land,
Yet after death, for all their toil
Have each but their own length of soil.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Wace (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.

All things to their decline do tend,All falls, expires, comes to its end:Man dies, iron rusts, wood rots away,Tower sinks, wall falls, rose has its day.Horse stumbles, cloth wears out apace,No work of hands leaves lasting trace.

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Attribution

All things to their decline do tend,
All falls, expires, comes to its end:
Man dies, iron rusts, wood rots away,
Tower sinks, wall falls, rose has its day.
Horse stumbles, cloth wears out apace,
No work of hands leaves lasting trace.