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Life is a smoke that curls—
Curls in a flickering skein,
That winds and whisks and whirls,
A figment thin and vain,
Into the vast inane.
One end for hut and hall.

— William Ernest Henley

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Topics

Life

More quotes by William Ernest Henley

From the winter's gray despair,
From the summer’s golden languor,
Death, the lover of Life,
Frees us for ever.

A Book of Verses (1888)

'Life is worth Living
Through every grain of it,
From the foundations
To the last edge
Of the cornerstone, death.'

Poems (1898)

Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.

A Book of Verses (1888)

Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

A Book of Verses (1888)

Life — life — life! 'Tis the sole great thing
This side of death,
Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!

Hawthorn and Lavender (1901)

All William Ernest Henley quotes →

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

Richard Francis Burton The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Attribution

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