Quotes

Quotes from the past:

Oui, tout est destiné à l’Oubli, à ce tyran muet et cruel qui suit la Gloire de près, et dévore à ses yeux ses amants et ses favoris.  Que dis-je?  La Gloire elle-même n’étant que du bruit, c’est-à-dire de l’air agité, elle flotte comme l’atmosphère autour du globe, et son cours change et souffle sans cesse, promenant les noms et les renommées, et finissant par les disperser.  Rivarol, Pensées inédites

Yes, all is destined for Oblivion, for that mute and cruel tyrant who follows Glory closely, and devours in front of her eyes her lovers and her favorites.  What am I saying?  Glory herself is nothing but noise, no more than agitated air, so she floats like the atmosphere surrounding the globe, and her path changes and blows constantly, taking away names and fame, and eventually dispersing it all. Rivarol, Unpublished Thoughts

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.  Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

—Percy Bysshe Shelley