Man
‹ 4 · Outline · 6 ›
5.The misery, frailty and nothingness of man
5a.Man as dust, worm and vanity
See also: Life and Death 2a
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 72–73Mortal and immortal contrasted; Calypso claims her form surpasses a mortal woman's, and offers Odysseus deathlessness if he stays.read · scan
- p. 73–74Contrasts mortal Penelope and ageless goddess; the mortal chooses mortality and home.read · scan
- p. 248Odysseus says nothing on earth is feebler than man, who thinks he will never suffer while the gods give him prosperity.read · scan
Aeschylus, AgamemnonVol. 8
- p. 40–41He asks to be honoured as man, not god, fearing pride; mortals should not usurp divine honours.read · scan
Aeschylus, Prometheus BoundVol. 8
- p. 186–188Mortals are purblind and powerless; their counsels cannot breach the harmony of Zeus.read · scan
The Book of JobVol. 44
- p. 83Man is helpless and cannot answer God even if righteous.read · scan
- p. 86–87Man is made of clay, flesh and sinews, a creature returning to dust.read · scan
- p. 108–111Bildad asks how man can be just with God; man is a worm, unclean, born of woman.read · scan
- p. 121–122Elihu says he is formed of clay like Job, made by God's spirit.read · scan
- p. 132–133Job is told to gird up like a man; human limits set against the Creator.read · scan
- p. 137–138Job confesses he is of small account; man cannot match God's power or annul his judgment.read · scan
- p. 138–139Human weakness contrasted with the beast that no man can master.read · scan
The Book of PsalmsVol. 44
- p. 215–216Men of low and high degree alike are vanity, lighter than breath in the balance.read · scan
- p. 270–271God knows our frame and remembers we are dust.read · scan
- p. 325What is man that God takes notice of him? Man is like vanity, his days a passing shadow.read · scan
- p. 327–328Man's breath departs, he returns to earth, and his thoughts perish; no help in the son of man.read · scan
Euripides, The BacchaeVol. 8
- p. 397–399The stranger notes one who dared rise against his god in wrath, being but man.read · scan
Buddhist WritingsVol. 45
- p. 742–743Meditation on the perishable body (hair, nails, teeth, skin) accompanies the robing.read · scan
Paul, The First Epistle of Paul to the CorinthiansVol. 45
- p. 494–495Human wisdom is folly with God; man should not boast, since all he has is received; apostles are weak, despised, doomed men.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 243A man is worth just so much as the things he busies himself about; human bustle resembles ants and puppets.read · scan
- p. 279–280Consider men in their bodily functions and arrogance; how lowly they are and were slaves to things, and what they will become.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 5Man is a mortal particle of creation, bearing the witness of his sin, yet moved to praise his Creator.read · scan
- p. 183Man is dust, made of dust, lost and found, needing God's strength.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 899Man created from crackling clay and taught speech; all creatures are transient.read · scan
- p. 970–971God wishes to make it light for man, who was created weak.read · scan
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of ChristVol. 7
- p. 229Human frailty and instability call for humility.read · scan
- p. 261–262Man is weaker than he can comprehend and has nothing to glory in.read · scan
- p. 275–276Man is dust and nothing, unstable and perishing when left alone, raised only by God.read · scan
- p. 281–282Human frailty and misery in this life, liable to fall and weak to resist.read · scan
- p. 303–304'What is man?' Man is nothing and has nothing good of himself, unstable and falling short without God.read · scan
- p. 304–305Man is inconstant, weak, vanity and nothing in God's sight.read · scan
- p. 309We are frail men, weak and unstable, though some call us angels.read · scan
- p. 329–330Man's great frailty is shown when small troubles overthrow his counsel and strength.read · scan
Martin Luther, Address to the Christian Nobility of the German NationVol. 36
- p. 296–297Paul and Barnabas refuse worship, saying they are men of like passions; the Pope too is a sinful man.read · scan
- p. 297–298A council should teach the Pope that he too is a man, not above God.read · scan
Sir Walter Raleigh, Preface to the History of the WorldVol. 39
- p. 98Men are least worms; the players are alike in their own skin.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkVol. 46
- p. 195Human greatness and beauty are reduced to dust; even ladies painted must come to this favourread · scan
- p. 196Even the world's masters end as common earthread · scan
John Webster, The Duchess of MalfiVol. 47
- p. 821–823Man's flesh is contemptible, weaker than paper prisons; the misery of man.read · scan
Francis Beaumont, On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey; Master Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben JonsonVol. 40
- p. 319–320Though called gods, the great died as men.read · scan
Hymns of the Christian Church: Hymns Based on PsalmsVol. 45
- p. 540Men are frail children of dust, feeble, dependent on God.read · scan
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 287–289Man's body is an elemental composition that falls to ashes; we are self-devouring cannibals.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise LostVol. 4
- p. 204Frail man contrasted with spirits: vulnerable in entrails, heart, head.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 51–52Completely at rest, man feels his nothingness, insufficiency and weakness, and gloom and despair arise.read · scan
- p. 123–124Forgetting teaches him weakness and nothingness.read · scan
- p. 140Man is a weak animal presuming to measure God's mercy.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 342–343Man's workmanship is to God's as puppets to men; God's works show power and wisdom, man's show pride, folly and excess.read · scan
Joseph Addison, The Vision of MirzaVol. 27
- p. 73Man is a shadow and life a dream.read · scan
Joseph Addison, Westminster AbbeyVol. 27
- p. 78–79Beauty, strength, youth and old age all end undistinguished in the same heap of matter.read · scan
- p. 80Reflects on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind.read · scan
George Sewell, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 481Man is as low, earthy and blind as the worm, his pride narrow and vain.read · scan
Thomas Gray, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 451–453Contemplation sees the race of man as like insects, fluttering through life's brief day to end in dust.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Tragedy of Faust, Part IVol. 19
- p. 33–34Faust laments human limits: man a worm in dust, self-torture the common lot, aspirations dulled by earthly strife.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 33–35Man's frailty and brevity before God: flourishes like a flower then withers; wild passions lead him astray; the righteous man flourishes, guilt brings fear of death.read · scan
Lord Byron, ManfredVol. 18
- p. 423He felt degraded when among men, being 'clay again'.read · scan
William Cullen Bryant, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1213–1214Man's individual being dissolves into the elements; all ages and ranks share one common destiny.read · scan
Edward FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of NaishápúrVol. 41
- p. 947–949Man is clay in the mould of the Maker, fleeting and ignorant of origin.read · scan
William Edmondstoune Aytoun, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 917–918All ages of humanity, from infants to the old, share the same mortal fate.read · scan
William Johnson Cory, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1113–1114Speaker professes himself a weak mortal clinging to men.read · scan
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1159–1161Man is but shadow and dust.read · scan
5b.The troubles and brevity of human life
See also: Life and Death 2b
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 94–95Odysseus denies likeness to the deathless gods, claiming kinship with the most sorrowful mortals.read · scan
The Book of JobVol. 44
- p. 76–77Mortal man cannot be more just than God; born to trouble as sparks fly upward, dwelling in houses of clay.read · scan
- p. 80–81Man's life is warfare, like a hireling's; what is man that God should magnify and try him?read · scan
- p. 92–93Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, like a flower cut down.read · scan
The Book of PsalmsVol. 44
- p. 190–191Man is frail, walks in a vain show and heaps riches without knowing who gathers them.read · scan
- p. 255–258Human life vanity, labor and sorrow, brief and fragile.read · scan
Sophocles, Oedipus the KingVol. 8
- p. 242–245The chorus laments that mortals are as nothing, briefly seeming blest before falling; no man can be called blest.read · scan
Euripides, HippolytusVol. 8
- p. 309–310Nurse laments that the days of men are sick and sore, changing and unsatisfied.read · scan
- p. 321–323Nurse says a perfect life is not for man; men wisely keep unseen what is not good to see.read · scan
Ecclesiastes; or, The PreacherVol. 44
- p. 341–342Man cannot contend with the mightier; no one knows what is good for him in his vain life.read · scan
- p. 343–344Man's misery is great upon him; he knows not what shall be and has no power over the day of death.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 165–166The chief source of evil, baseness and cowardice to man is fear of death; overcoming it frees men.read · scan
- p. 166Freedom defined as living as one wishes; the wicked are unfree; man's condition is precarious and beset by dangers, so he must rely on God.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 298–299Viewed from above, human beings show sameness and brevity; nothing to be proud of.read · scan
- p. 301Man as citizen of the world-state and actor in a drama whose length nature decides; he should depart content when nature dismisses him.read · scan
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of ChristVol. 7
- p. 228–229Human life is wretched, bound by bodily necessities and corruption.read · scan
- p. 313–314Human life is misery: defiled by sins, passions, fears, cares, labours and poverty; the flesh wars against the spirit.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 229Even the virtuous are frail and mutable in nature.read · scan
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 233–234He reflects on human frailty in his misery.read · scan
Sir Walter Raleigh, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 207Man as actor on the earth's stage.read · scan
Francis Bacon, LifeVol. 40
- p. 348–349Human life is a bubble, wretched from conception to tomb, cursed with cares and fears from the cradle.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King LearVol. 46
- p. 265–266Kent says man's nature cannot bear the affliction or fear of such a storm.read · scan
- p. 293Lear says we come crying into this great stage of fools; a dog obeyed in office shows human authority's emptiness.read · scan
- p. 315Lear asks why a dog, horse or rat has life and Cordelia none; life is endured as suffering.read · scan
Ben Jonson, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 291–293Man's frail condition is born to age, misfortune, sickness, grief, to be borne with scorn and inner strength.read · scan
John Webster, The Duchess of MalfiVol. 47
- p. 824Bosola's dirge: man's conception sin, birth weeping, life a mist of error.read · scan
John Milton, Samson AgonistesVol. 4
- p. 415'What is Man' that God tempers his providence so variously through man's short course.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 24Man's misery without God and vanity of all conditions of men.read · scan
- p. 53The natural poverty of our feeble, mortal condition is so miserable that nothing comforts us when we think closely.read · scan
- p. 71Pleasures are vanity and evils infinite, as the least enlightened can see.read · scan
- p. 77–78The image of prisoners depicts the human condition.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, Minor WorksVol. 48
- p. 411–412Man is born for thought yet needs agitation by passions; his life is miserably brief and reason begins only around twenty.read · scan
William Penn, More Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 381Man is less durable than his works because this world is not his rest; he fixes his mind where he cannot stay.read · scan
Joseph Addison, The Vision of MirzaVol. 27
- p. 75Human existence is shown as misery, frailty and delusion.read · scan
Thomas Gray, PoemsVol. 40
- p. 449–451All are men, doomed to groan; the poet prays to learn pity and 'know myself a Man'.read · scan
- p. 453–454Man's feeble race suffers labour, penury, pain, disease, sorrow and death, yet the poet justifies the laws of Jove.read · scan
Robert Burns, Poems and SongsVol. 6
- p. 58–60Old sage asks whether the young stranger comes to mourn the miseries of man.read · scan
- p. 60–63Refrain that man was made to mourn: cares, age, want, regret and remorse afflict all, and man's inhumanity to man multiplies grief.read · scan
- p. 365–367Domestic happiness is the true pathos and sublime of human life.read · scan
- p. 506–507'Man is a soger, and Life is a faught': man's lot is struggle, met with mirth, contentment and freedom.read · scan
Friedrich Schiller, William TellVol. 26
- p. 451–452Man is like a ball tossed between winds and billows, without haven.read · scan
William Wordsworth, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 660–661The bent, ancient leech-gatherer is portrayed as a figure of human frailty yet dignity, sent as an admonishment to the poet.read · scan
Thomas Campbell, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 772–774Man alone asks no truce to death and sets no bounds to human woe, unlike the winds.read · scan
Leigh Hunt, On the Realities of ImaginationVol. 27
- p. 290–291Weeping is part of being human: 'For oft we still must weep, since we are human.'read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter ScottVol. 25
- p. 400Man's life is a battle, jostling and giving offence, in conflict with contradiction and evil within and without; to paint it is to show this.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CompensationVol. 5
- p. 97–98Man is put on his wits and manhood by adversity.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The PoetVol. 5
- p. 177Man is like the shepherd perishing near his door; every thought is a prison.read · scan
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1276–1278Generations of care-encumbered men bear their burdens of sorrow across the bridgeread · scan
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1013–1014Virgil is majestic in sadness at the doubtful doom of human kindread · scan
Edgar Allan Poe, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1239–1241Human life is a tragedy, a puppet play of hopes and fears whose hero is the Conqueror Worm.read · scan
Matthew Arnold, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1133–1134Mankind as a feeble, wavering host marching through the wilderness, threatened by factions.read · scan
- p. 1136–1138The eternal note of sadness and human misery ebbs and flows, heard alike by Sophocles and moderns.read · scan
5c.Man a speck before the infinite and in the universe
Plato, PhaedoVol. 2
- p. 104Men are like ants or frogs around a marsh, limited by feebleness.read · scan
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of EpictetusVol. 2
- p. 128Man is a speck in the Universe in body, yet in Reason equal to the gods; greatness is in the resolves of mind.read · scan
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus AureliusVol. 2
- p. 300–301Man's smallness in boundless time, substance and earth; his worth lies only in following reason and acting according to his nature, not in clinging to existence.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 934–935Man's creation is lesser than the heavens', most men ignorant and thankless; formed excellently from earth and clot, passing through childhood to old age.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 26Man's disproportion and need to consider himself and nature seriously; innate knowledge leads to humiliation.read · scan
- p. 26–27Man is lost in a corner of nature; what is a man in the Infinite?read · scan
- p. 72Man is ignorant of his origin, body, soul and place, a tiny atom before the infinite.read · scan
- p. 78–79Human limits of knowledge, stature and lifespan seem arbitrary.read · scan
- p. 118Man is a thinking reed, feeblest in nature but nobler than the universe that kills him, because he knows he dies.read · scan
- p. 166Man's wretchedness and insignificance; to judge him too small for communion with God we would ourselves have to be great.read · scan
- p. 233Man's wretchedness: lost in a silent universe, ignorant of who placed him there or his fate at death.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, Minor WorksVol. 48
- p. 436–437Contemplating the double infinity teaches man to know himself, placed between infinitude and nothingness, and to estimate his true value.read · scan
Alexander Pope, Solitude; On a Certain Lady at Court; Essay on ManVol. 40
- p. 407Man's place in a great scale of being; his weakness and limits are right relative to the whole.read · scan
- p. 407Man is perfect as he ought to be; his knowledge measured to his state, his time a moment.read · scan
Voltaire, Letters on the EnglishVol. 34
- p. 143–144Man is a mite who thinks himself the image of the Infinite, though short-lived and restless.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 56Before the Almighty we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, as David cried 'fearfully and wonderfully am I made'.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Origin of SpeciesVol. 11
- p. 73–74Even slow-breeding man would run out of standing-room if unchecked.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 245–246Man appears to have little claim or authority amid the warring inanimate forces of this desolate region.read · scan
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1035–1036The cold cosmic plan burns his nothingness into man.read · scan
Frank Aretas Haskell, The Battle of GettysburgVol. 43
- p. 376Man arranged the scene but, conscious of his littleness, steps aside for more powerful actors in the drama of battle.read · scan
Simon Newcomb, The Extent of the UniverseVol. 30
- p. 312Human affairs sink into insignificance beside the stupendous frame of the heavens.read · scan
5d.Man stripped of circumstance: Lear's unaccommodated man
Dante Alighieri, PurgatoryVol. 20
- p. 238Human face is fancifully read as spelling OMO (man), with eyes as O's, now hollowed by fasting.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King LearVol. 46
- p. 233–236Lear's loss of identity: 'Who is it that can tell me who I am?' answered 'Lear's shadow'; man reduced to nothing without power.read · scan
- p. 238–239Lear ashamed that she has power to shake his manhood.read · scan
- p. 247–252Edgar reduces himself to the poorest shape, near to beast, to survive; man stripped to bare nakedness.read · scan
- p. 258Lear argues that man needs more than bare necessity: without superfluity, man's life is cheap as a beast's.read · scan
- p. 270Lear asks 'Is man no more than this?' and finds unaccommodated man a poor, bare, forked animal stripped of borrowed comforts.read · scan
- p. 281Gloucester says the sight of a naked beggar made him think man a worm; misery of the human condition.read · scan
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1172–1174Kingship stripped away leaves the man.read · scan
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