O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparklingThames: Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rifeö Fly hence, our contact fear!

-Arnold, Matthew
  Poems:  A New Edition,'The Scholar-Gipsy', l.201^6.

Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Poems: Second Series,'Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse', l.85^8.

The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews, Not to be born is the best for man; The second-best is a formal order, The dance's pattern; dance while you can.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  'Letter to William Coldstream, Esq', in Letter from Iceland (with Louis MacNeice).

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.2,'Of Death'.

: Oh, but thou dost not know What 'tis to die. :Yes, I do know, my Lord: 'Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep; A quiet resting from all jealousy, A thing we all pursue; I know besides, It is but giving over of a game, That must be lost.

-Beaumont, Francis and Fletcher,John
     PHILASTERBELLARIO1609  Philaster (published1620), act 3, sc.1.

We are all born crazy. Some remain that way.

-Beckett, Samuel
  Waiting for Godot, act 2.

There are English counties like hunting-tunes Played on the keys of a postboy's horn, But I will remember where I was born.

-Bene¤  t, StephenVincent
  'American Names'.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: Atimeto be born, and atimeto die; atimetoplant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; Atimetoweep, and atimeto laugh; atimetomourn, and a time to dance: A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes 3:1^8.

Even so we in like manner, as soon as we were born, began to draw to our end, and had no sign of virtue to shew; but were consumed in our own wickedness. For the hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away with the wind; like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm; like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with a tempest, and passeth away as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day.

-Bible (Apocrypha)
Wisdom of Solomon 5:13^14.

Jesus answered and said unto him,Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St  John 3:3.

And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of duetime.For I amthe least of theapostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Corinthians15:8^9.

On ne na|"t pas femme: on le devient. One is not born a woman: one becomes a woman.

-de Beauvoir, Simone
  Le Deuxie' m e Sexe (The Second Sex), bk.2, pt.1, ch.1.

Oh gracious, why wasn't I born old and ugly?

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
  Miss Miggs. Barnaby Rudge, ch.70.

'People can't die, along the coast,'said Mr Peggotty, 'except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh inönot properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide.'

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^50  On the death of Barkis. David Copperfield, ch.30.

I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^1  Pip. Great Expectations, ch.4.

Ce n'est que par la me¤  moire que nous sommes un me"  me individu pour les autres et pour nous-me"  mes. Il ne me reste peut-e"  tre pas, a'   l'a"  ge quej'ai, une seule mole¤  cule du corps que j'apportai en naissant. It is only in memory that we are the same person for others and for ourselves. At the age I am now, there is probably not a single molecule of my body that I had when born.

-Diderot, Denis
  Discours sur la poe¤  sie dramatique.

If only to be born were being invented Merely, or, better still, to concoct oneself From an antique alembic, a receipt. How splendid To take the phial cleanly from its shelf; Powders and liquids, all one's favourite hues Making the being one would be, the looker at stars Or storks on the spires of Denmark, drinker of dews, Or an eye simply.

-Doyle, Charles (Mike)
'Phials', collected in Quadrant,1964.

Birth, and copulation, and death. That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks: Birth, and copulation, and death. I've been born, and once is enough.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Sweeney  Agonistes,'Fragment of an  Agon'.

Je suis ne¤   pour te conna|"tre Pour te nommer Liberte¤  . I was born to know you To give you your name: Freedom.

-EŁ  luard, Paul pseudonym of  Euge'  ne Grindel
  Poe¤  sie et ve¤  rite¤ , 'Liberte¤ ' .

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

-Emerson, RalphWaldo
  The Conduct of Life,'Worship'.