Lytle hwile leof beoth grene thonne hie eft fealewiath, feallath on eorthan and forweorniath weorthiath to duste. For a little while the leaves are green. Then they turn yellow, fall to the ground, and perish, turning to dust.

-Anonymous
c.900  Second Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn, l.136^8.

It was prettily devised of Aesop,'The fly sat upon the axletree of the chariot-wheel and said, what a dust do I raise.'

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.54,'Of  Vain-Glory'.

   I am inclined tothink that the fargreater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselvesöthat we have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

-Berkeley, George
  A  Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, introduction.

And the L God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDGenesis 2:7.

And the L God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDGenesis 3:14^15.

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shall return.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Genesis 3:19.

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Job 42:5^6.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the L pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDPsalms103:13^14.

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because theyare few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low: Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and mournersgo about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes12:1^7.

Whohathmeasured thewatersinthehollowof hishand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

-Bible (Old Testament)
Isaiah 40:12.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the L.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDIsaiah 65:25.

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.

We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope ofthe Resurrectionto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

-Book of Common Prayer
Burial of the Dead, Committal.

  If I should die, thinkonly this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich dust a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

-Brooke, Rupert Chawner
  'The Soldier'.

How beautiful is all this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride.

-Rochdale
  Manfred, act1, sc.2.

   I remember my youth and the feeling that it will never come back any moreöthe feeling that I could last for ever, outlast thesea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effortöto death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expiresöand expires, too soon, too soonöbefore life itself.

-Connor, Sir William Neil pseudonym Cassandra
  'Youth'.

I mean, after all; you have to consider that we're only made out of dust. That's admittedly not much to go on and we shouldn't forget that. But even considering, I mean, it's sort of a bad beginning, we're not doing too bad. So I personally have faith that even in this lousy situation we're faced with we can make it.You get me?

-Dick, Philip K(indred)
  The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, closing words.

Death is a dialogue between The Spirit and the Dust.

-Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth
c.1864  Complete Poems, no.976 (first published1890).

He ate and drank the precious Words, His Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was Dust.

-Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth
c.1883  Complete Poems, no.1587 (first published1890).

It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an oak in the chimney are no epitaph of that oak, to tell me how high or how large that was; it tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell†and when a whirlwind hathblownthedustofthechurchyard intothe church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the church into the churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce,This is the Patrician, this the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran.

-Donne,John
c.1621 Of death. Sermon, 8 Mar.