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More "Ecclesiastes" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dispensation, whereby all men are declared equal in the sight of God—nevertheless it does contain a very lofty law of righteousness applicable to all mankind. It is because of their universality that the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, as also many passages in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and the minor prophets, have made an undying appeal to the human race. But the Jewish religion now takes its stand on the Talmud rather than on the Bible. "The modern Jew," one of its latest Jewish translators observes, "is ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... perhaps in all Hogarth for serious expression. That which comes next to it, I think, is the jaded morning countenance of the debauchee in the second plate of the Marriage Alamode, which lectures on the vanity of pleasure as audibly as anything in Ecclesiastes.] ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... ordinariness in his composition to harden him, he would almost certainly have ended as the leading Irish statesman of his day. He was undoubtedly ambitious of success in the grand style. But with his ambition went the mood of Ecclesiastes, which reminded him of the vanity of ambition. In his youth he adhered to Herbert Spencer's much-quoted saying: "What I need to realize is how infinitesimal is the importance of anything I can do, and how infinitely important ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... resolved upon a new explication of the holy bible, and among others of the godly and learned in the ministry, Mr. Blair had the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes assigned to him for his part, but he neglected that task, till he was rendered useless for other purposes, and then set about and finished his commentary on the Proverbs in 1666. He composed also some small poetical pieces, as a poem in commendation of Jesus Christ, for the confutation ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... said Elder Staples, "of the sad burden of Ecclesiastes, the mournfulest book of Scripture; because, while the preacher dwells with earnestness upon the vanity and uncertainty of the things of time and sense, he has no apparent hope of immortality to relieve the dark picture. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... writers in all departments of English literature to such an extent that you can scarcely read a masterpiece in which there is not some conscious or unconscious reference to them. Another book of philosophical importance is Ecclesiastes, where, in addition to much proverbial wisdom, you will find some admirable world-poetry—that is, poetry which contains universal truth about human life in all times and all ages. Of the historical books and the law books I do not think that ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... lies. A man must look out for himself. If he is not to make a slave of his wife, he is also not to be too submissive; 'that will cause her to disdain thee.' Moreover, he must have an eye to the expenditure. She may keep the keys, but he will control the pocket-book. The model wife in Ecclesiastes had greater privileges; she could not only consider a piece of ground, but she could buy it if she liked it. Not so this well-trained wife of Lyly's novel. 'Let all the keys hang at her girdle, but the purse at thine, so shalt thou know what thou dost ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... one verse did the author of Ecclesiastes make use of the word vanity, in allusion to the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... it is really curious to see by what devices some very insignificant personages have endeavored to make their own names conspicuous in the crowd. Generally speaking the inscription books and walls of distinguished places tend to give great force to the Vulgate rendering of Ecclesiastes i. 15, "The number ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... been cast upon the names of Solomon and David by their alleged writings. But it is now acknowledged that David wrote few, if any, of the Psalms, and that Solomon wrote neither Ecclesiastes nor the Song of Songs, though some of the Proverbs may ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... lay or clerical, gentle or simple, as far as I can remember, do their duty in any wise, even if they recollect that they have any duty to do. Greed, chicane, hypocrisy, uselessness are the ruling laws of human society. A new book of Ecclesiastes, crying, "Vanity of vanity, all is vanity;" the "conclusion of the whole matter" being left out, and the new Ecclesiastes rendered thereby diabolic, instead of like that old one, divine. For, instead of "Fear God and keep his commandments, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... pastoral quiet after the wars of the Judges, like an innocent child which has crept between the ranks of hostile armies; the intense devotion of the Psalms after the speculative discussions of Job, and before the practical wisdom of Proverbs; the gloom of Ecclesiastes, and then the sweetness of the Song of Solomon, as sharply divided as the eastern morning which leaps from the night, or, as an old Greek might have said, silver-footed Thetis rising from the bed of old Tithonus; Isaiah's majestic sweep of eagle ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... a devotional character were, one on 'The Gift of Prayer,' a formal and elaborate treatise with many divisions and subdivisions, in spirit earnest and devout. Its companion treatise, 'Ecclesiastes; or the Gift of Preaching,' shows a high conception of the learning which he thought necessary for one who would preach well; knowledge of commentators; of preachers, especially of English sermon-writers; of works on Christian doctrine, on the history of Christianity; of all subjects which can ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... most important chapters of divine revelation, was thrown open wide before them. The truths that they read there, as their eyes were divinely opened to see it, are recorded in the wisdom books of the Old Testament,—Proverbs, Job, The Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... That late did scorn him; And you that did rebel, Crave pardon of him; With speed turn a new leaf For your transgresses; Hear what the preacher sayes In Ecclesiastes, - The Scripture's true, and shall Ever be taught; Curse not the King at all, No, not in thy thought: And holy Peter Two commandments doth bring, - Is first for to fear God, ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... into the next life, and say that the departing spirit carries with him nothing except this individual character, no acquirements or information or extraneous culture. It was perhaps in the same spirit that the sad preacher in Ecclesiastes said there is no "knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest." It is by this character that we classify civilized and even semi-civilized races; by this slowly developed fibre, this slow accumulation of inherent quality ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... all true. How the Jewish genius had gone to the heart of things, so that the races that hated it found comfort in its Psalms. No sense of form, the end of Ecclesiastes a confusion and a weak repetition like the last disordered spasms of a prophetic seizure. No care for art, only for reality. And yet he had once thought he loved the Greeks better, had from childhood yearned after forbidden gods, thrilled by that solitary marble figure of a girl that looked ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?—Ecclesiastes ...
— The Golden Age Cook Book • Henrietta Latham Dwight
... fragment of Old Testament verse has been running through my mind—from Ecclesiastes, I think. I don't remember it verbatim, but it's something ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... the Book of Ecclesiastes, which has been for many centuries generally attributed to Solomon the son of David. I say generally, because, not only among later critics, but even among the ancient Jewish Rabbis, there have been those who doubted or denied that ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... monsoons are made to blow—the harmattan on the west coast of Africa; the simoon, with its deadly breath, in Arabia; the oppressive sirocco in the Mediterranean. What I have said will explain that beautiful passage in Ecclesiastes, 1st chapter, 6th verse, which shows the exactness of the sacred writers whenever they do introduce scientific subjects: 'The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... read his books, other stars had risen in the East. His publisher had exclaimed with energy, as Borrow himself would relate, "I want to meet with good writers, but there are none to be had: I want a man who can write like Ecclesiastes." There is something tragic in the account that Mr Watts-Dunton gives of ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... named Scobaria, having erected a school for divinity lectures, appointed Dr. Constantine to be reader therein. He immediately undertook the task, and read lectures, by portions, on the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles; and was beginning to expound the book of Job, when he ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... composition to harden him, he would almost certainly have ended as the leading Irish statesman of his day. He was undoubtedly ambitious of success in the grand style. But with his ambition went the mood of Ecclesiastes, which reminded him of the vanity of ambition. In his youth he adhered to Herbert Spencer's much-quoted saying: "What I need to realize is how infinitesimal is the importance of anything I can do, and how infinitely important it is that I should do it." But, while with Spencer ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... massive candlesticks, and there fell upon her knees—a good place to pray in, among the cool slabs, the panels of black marble glittering with the name and full titles of the dead, and the inscriptions from Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs. But the Princess could find only a few indistinct words, confused with profane thoughts, which made her ashamed. She rose and busied herself with the flower-stands, retiring gradually far enough to judge the effect of the sarcophagus ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.'—Ecclesiastes, chapter 1 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, is also ascribed to Solomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is written as the solitary reflections of a worn-out debauchee, such as Solomon was, who looking back on scenes he can no longer enjoy, cries out All is Vanity! A great ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... morning before 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 ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... overlong-lasting wealth. Another is, that the scripture much commendeth tribulation as occasion of more profit than wealth and prosperity, not only to those who are therein but to those who resort unto them too. And therefore saith Ecclesiastes, "Better is it to go to the house of weeping and wailing for some man's death, than to the house of a feast; for in that house of heaviness is a man put in remembrance of the end of every man, and while he liveth he thinketh what shall come after." ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate's sea-chest. I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to me from Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he was speaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and his voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin, charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but he certainly knows how to express ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... the Judges, like an innocent child which has crept between the ranks of hostile armies; the intense devotion of the Psalms after the speculative discussions of Job, and before the practical wisdom of Proverbs; the gloom of Ecclesiastes, and then the sweetness of the Song of Solomon, as sharply divided as the eastern morning which leaps from the night, or, as an old Greek might have said, silver-footed Thetis rising from the bed of old Tithonus; Isaiah's majestic sweep of eagle pinion, with ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... as standards of height, a spire which climbs four hundred feet towards the sky is a new sensation. Whether I am more "afraid of that which is high" than I was at my first visit, as I should be on the authority of Ecclesiastes, I cannot say, but it was quite enough for me to let my eyes climb the spire, and I had no desire whatever to stand upon that "bad eminence," as I am sure that I should have ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... evening the Lord kindly sent further help, when we were again destitute of the means of providing for tomorrow. I received 20l. (half for the Orphan-Fund, and half for the other funds), with Ecclesiastes ix. 10: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... opponents and by himself: he categorically refused to add any dogmatically Christian element to his scheme. Similarly with his Ernste Gesaenge, written some thirty years later, at the end of his life: he balances the reflections on death taken from Ecclesiastes and similar sources with the Pauline chapter on faith, hope, and charity—not with any more definite consolation. And again, with the choral works, the settings of Hoelderlin's Schicksalslied, Schiller's Naenie, Goethe's ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... gifted with nine-tenths of all the wisdom and knowledge which Allah has granted to mankind, and understand not only the languages of men, but those also of beasts and birds.'" Some recollection of this appears in Ecclesiastes (x. 20), where we read, "For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter," and in our own familiar saying "a little bird told me," as well as in the Bulbul-hezar or talking bird of the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... when Eulalie was there, to 'look pleasant.' But she would make up for that after the other's departure; never, it is true, alluding to her by name, but hinting at her in Sibylline oracles, or in utterances of a comprehensive character, like those of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, but so worded that their special application could not escape my aunt. After peering out at the side of the curtain to see whether Eulalie had shut the front-door behind her; "Flatterers know how ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... comes that, while being unrestrictedly rationalist, I have none the less seemed a thorough conservative in the discussions relating to the age and authenticity of Holy Writ. The first edition of my Histoire Generale des Langues Semitiques, for instance, contains so far as regards the book of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon, several concessions to traditional opinions which I have since eliminated one after the other. In my Origines du Christianisme, upon the other hand, this reserved attitude has stood me in good stead, for in writing this essay, I had ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... cunning in song, was two hundred four score and eight, (c. xxv.) Solomon is related by Josephus to have made 200,000 trumpets, and 40,000 instruments of music, to praise God with. In the 2d chapter of Ecclesiastes, music is mentioned by Solomon among the vanities and follies in which he found no profit, in terms which show how generally a cultivated taste was diffused among his subjects. "I gat me men-singers and women-singers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." So we read in Ecclesiastes. This text has been 291:21 transformed into the popular proverb, "As the tree falls, so it must lie." As man falleth asleep, so shall he awake. As death findeth mortal man, so shall he be 291:24 after death, until probation and growth shall effect the needed change. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... he is also not to be too submissive; 'that will cause her to disdain thee.' Moreover, he must have an eye to the expenditure. She may keep the keys, but he will control the pocket-book. The model wife in Ecclesiastes had greater privileges; she could not only consider a piece of ground, but she could buy it if she liked it. Not so this well-trained wife of Lyly's novel. 'Let all the keys hang at her girdle, but the purse at thine, so shalt thou know what thou dost spend, ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... took on a sombre colouring, and the majestic pageant of the world's progress appeared no more than a shadow too vain and futile to be worth while watching as it passed. Into a Slough of Despond, such as Solomon experienced when he wrote his famous "Ecclesiastes," Aubrey sank unconsciously, and,—to do him justice,—most unwillingly. His was naturally a bright, vivacious, healthy nature—but he was over- sensitively organised,—his nerves did not resemble iron so much as finely-tempered steel, which could ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven ... a time to mourn and a time to dance.... He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.' Ecclesiastes iii. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... motley collection of national literature which, extending over many generations of authorship, streaked with strayed fragments of Aramaic, varying from the idyll of Ruth to the apocalyptic dreams of Daniel, and deprived by Job and Ecclesiastes of even a rambling epical unity, is naturally obnoxious to criticism when put forward as one uniform Book, still more when put forward as uniformly divine. For my part I am more lost in wonder over the people that produced and preserved and the Synagogue that selected and ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... makes all clear. "Our Author," it appears, "did not look upon poetry as the serious business of his life; for whilst he was thus amusing his leisure hours with the Muses, he wrote a full and clear commentary upon the Book of Ecclesiastes, and large critical notes upon the Pentateuch." After this, the astonished reader will perhaps be disinclined to verify the statement, reluctantly made, that in the poems of our author "we sometimes meet with a vicious copiousness of style, at others, with ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... is not, however, the authority for this proverb; it occurs in the 9th chapter of Ecclesiastes and ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... Casas. He must have been a Spaniard, for he is writing about the Indians. He says, 'We are killing them, and have done so relentlessly.' Seems to me that was a good deal like the fur trade. He goes on and says some more from Ecclesiastes: 'The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked. Neither is He pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doth as one that killeth the son before the ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... spirituality which ensures that immortality. However this may be, we may at any rate agree that body comes UP and spirit comes DOWN, and they consort here together for a few decades: then the body undoubtedly returns as dust to dust, and "the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes). But there would be no evolution and no fulfilment of purpose if the spirit were not to return a richer and more developed spirit by reason of its sojourn in the flesh: there would be stagnation, just a simple ineffectual turning round and round, as of a ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... Psalms and Proverbs part includes the books from Job to the Song of Solomon, and contains {49} many Hymns of prayer and praise; also discussions of deep problems of human nature and our relation to God (Job and Ecclesiastes); together with other things which stir us to a life of goodness ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... 11, 12, where the Lord asks the prophet, "What seest thou?'' and he replies, "The rod of an almond-tree''; and the Lord says, "Thou hast well seen, for I will hasten my word to perform it.'' In Ecclesiastes xii. 5 it is saib the "almond-tree shall flourish.'' This has often been supposed to refer to the resemblance of the hoary locks of age to the flowers of the almond; but this exposition is not borne out by the facts of the case, inasmuch as the flowers of the almond are not white but ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that the so-called Canon of the Jews could not guarantee to us the value of the writings. Consequently, such books as Ruth and Esther, (the latter indeed not containing one religious sentiment,) stood forth at once in their natural insignificance. Ecclesiastes also seemed to me a meagre and shallow production. Chronicles I now learned to be not credulous only, but unfair, perhaps so far as to be actually dishonest. Not one of the historical books of the Old Testament could approve itself to me as of any high antiquity or of any spiritual authority; ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... were characterized by a calm and rational philosophy, that recognized the laws of life and fed the wisdom which obeys them. Even Agnosticism, in so far as it is the confession of the inadequacy of every interpretation of the universe, finds despondent yet still earnest expression in Ecclesiastes, and humble, hopeful expression in Job; and the silence of many of the noblest natures of our age, which the churches brand as irreligious, finds place among the phases of religion ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... advocate. Solomon looks like a jovial good fellow. The two effigies on the other side of the door might perhaps invite attention if they were not so completely crushed by the third. Again a question. By what right does the author of that admirable book 'Ecclesiastes' find a place ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Me—The origin of this phrase is doubtless to be found in Ecclesiastes, x, 20:—For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the movement of the sun, he said God had His angels push it across the firmament and put it behind a mountain each night, and the next morning it was brought out on the other side. He met every objection by citations from Job, Genesis, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes and the New Testament, and wound up with an anathema upon any or all who doubted or questioned in this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
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