When Life is woe,
And Hope is dumb,
The World says, “Go!”
The Grave says, “Come!”
Quotations about:
oblivion
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
James Thurber (1894-1961) American cartoonist and writer
In Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Twenty-Three Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1940)
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Also published in Forum and Century (Jun 1939). Words spoken by Sylvester Blougram, the title character from Robert Browning's "Bishop Blougram's Apology" (1855).
Ignorance is not bliss — it is oblivion. Determined ignorance is the hastiest kind of oblivion.
Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; the only earthly certainty is oblivion ….
Horace Greeley (1881-1872) American newspaper editor, reformer, politician
Recollections of a Busy Life, ch. 18 (1868)
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Quoted by Mark Twain in his Notebook (1869), and often attributed to him. Frequently misquoted as "Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; those who cheer today will curse tomorrow; only one thing endures: character." More discussion of this quotation here.
If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing — court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statemen, “William H. Seward” (1916)
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Variants show up elsewhere in Hubbard's writings and and his quote epigrams.Often misattributed to Aristotle.
- To escape criticism -- do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
- To avoid unkind criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
- There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.
But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. […] Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, then any that stand remembred in the known account of time?
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall, ch. 5 (1658)
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