Quotes About Meaning

“Should this stream of words go unanswered and such a speaker be vindicated?

But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last, and where is he?

Should he argue with useless words or speeches that serve no purpose?

Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.

“Can a man be of use to God? Can even a wise man benefit Him?

Surely all of you have seen it for yourselves. Why then do you keep up this empty talk?

No man can know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living.

For he has said, ëIt profits a man nothing that he should delight in God.í

If you are righteous, what do you give Him, or what does He receive from your hand?

Will Your wonders be known in the darkness, or Your righteousness in the land of oblivion?

Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

Like lame legs hanging limp is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.

“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”

What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun?

And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.

So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.

I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy what is good!” But it proved to be futile.

I said of laughter, “It is folly,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?”

I sought to cheer my body with wine and to embrace folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

So I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will also befall me. What then have I gained by being wise?” And I said to myself that this too is futile.

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.