Echoes Across Time

The Aphorist on Death

The shortest literary form meeting the biggest subject. John Keats, Benjamin Franklin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcus Aurelius — writers who tried to compress everything about mortality into a single, devastating sentence.

42 total quotes

“
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

—Marcel ProustNovelist

Early Modern ERA • Western Europe

“
Time does not heal all wounds. It only teaches us to live with them.

—Chiung YaoNovelist

Post-War ERA • East Asia

“
Fortune is blind and so are those in her power.

—Giovanni BoccaccioWriter & Poet

Medieval ERA • Southern Europe

“
To remember is to live again, but also to suffer again.

—Nick JoaquinWriter & Author

Post-War ERA • Southeast Asia

“
Myriad changes make life like a dream.

—Du FuPoet & Sage

Medieval ERA • East Asia

“
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

—Eleanor RooseveltDiplomat & Activist

Post-War ERA • North America

“
A woman who has children is not afraid of death.

—Flora NwapaNovelist

Post-War ERA • West Africa

“
The 'good old times' ‑ all times when old are good.

—Lord ByronPoet

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

“
There is nothing new under the sun, except that which is forgotten.

—Nachman of BreslovMystic

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

“
All men are mortal. Even the mighty fall.

—Sin-leqi-unninniScholar

Ancient World ERA • MENA

“
Life is a chronic illness with short periods of remission.

—Armonía SomersNovelist

Post-War ERA • Latin America

“
The future is uncertain. Eat your soup while it's hot.

—Nasreddin HodjaPhilosopher & Satirist

Medieval ERA • MENA

“
History is a great teacher. Men who ignore it are condemned to repeat it.

—Haile SelassieEmperor

Post-War ERA • East Africa

“
All is vanity! What we behold is naught.

—Andreas GryphiusPoet & Playwright

Renaissance ERA • Western Europe

“
Lost time is never found again.

—Benjamin FranklinPolymath & Statesman

Enlightenment ERA • North America

“
What cannot be said will be wept.

—SapphoLyric Poet

Ancient World ERA • Southern Europe

“
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.

—SenecaPhilosopher, Statesman & Playwright

Ancient World ERA • Southern Europe

“
Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all ye know on earth.

—John KeatsPoet

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

“
The future is a present that hasn't quite arrived.

—Roberto BolañoNovelist & Poet

Late Modern ERA • Latin America

“
A man without a past is a child without a future.

—Chingiz AitmatovNovelist

Post-War ERA • Central Asia

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