Ah! what is human life? How, like the dial's tardy-moving shade, Day after day slides from us unperceiv'd! The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth; Too subtle is the movement to be seen; Yet soon the hour is up--and we are gone.

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!

Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids; Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.

When men of infamy to grandeur soar, They light a torch to show their shame the more.

We see time's furrows on another's brow, And death intrench'd, preparing his assault; How few themselves in that just mirror see!

A man of pleasure is a man of pains.

The man that makes a character, makes foes.