"Ecclesiastes" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not find any of that consciousness of the imbecility of man, which made some French writers call the humour of Democritus "melancholy." The "Vanity" of which he speaks is not that universal emptiness alluded to by the surfeited author of Ecclesiastes, nor has it even the ordinary signification of personal conceit. No; he implies something more culpable, such immorality as covetousness, deception, vindictiveness, and hypocrisy. He approaches the Roman Satirists in the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... I left my bed, I pondered over the events and conduct of the preceding day, but not with satisfaction, or self approbation. The seventh chapter of Ecclesiastes came fresh to my mind. I said to myself, adversity and constraint are more favorable to wisdom, than liberty and prosperity; or to express it in better words—"sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... more powerful efforts have been made, and he begins to feel the uncertainty of results and final values which attaches itself to everything. There is a deadening thought of uselessness which creeps into many men's minds—the thought which has been best expressed by the Preacher in Ecclesiastes. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... In the book of Ecclesiastes, from which the above sentence is taken, are many sentiments not in accordance with the religion of Christ. For example; "That which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... mind remained clear and strong, and never more so than on the night of his death. That evening after I had eaten I went to his room as usual and found him reading a beautiful manuscript of the book of the Wisdom of Solomon that is called Ecclesiastes, a work which he preferred to all others, since its thoughts were his. "I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasures of kings," he read aloud, whether to himself or to me I knew not, and went on, "So I was great, and increased more than all that were ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
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