time wittingly and spontaneously is an action of supreme importance,
and its consequences reach over the whole of life. Not only is it that
he who has renounced one thing has shown himself implicitly capable of
renouncing all things: he has shown much more; reflection, choice,
will. Thenceforth he is able to see part of life at all events from
outside, the part which he has put away from himself; for the first
time his criticism of life begins to be real. He has no longer a mere
feeling with regard to the laws of nature, whether eager haste or
sullen submission or blind revolt; behind the feeling there is now
thought, the power which makes and unmakes all things.

And so in mature age Greek thought began to make criticisms on life;
and of these the Anthology preserves and crystallises many brilliant
fragments. Perhaps there is no thought among them which was even then
original; certainly there is none which is not now more or less
familiar. But the perfected expression without which thought remains
obscure and ineffectual gives some of them a value as enduring as
their charm. A few of them are here set side by side without comment,
for no comment is needed to make their sense clear, nor to give weight
to their grave and penetrating reality.[9]

"Those who have left the sweet light I mourn no longer, but those who
live in perpetual expectation of death."

"What belongs to mortals is mortal, and all things pass by us; and if
not, yet we pass by them."

"Now we flourish, as others did before, and others will presently,
whose children we shall not see."