“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore.”
Lord Byron · Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV, 1818
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To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
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About this quote
Meaning
This verse teaches that life moves in rhythms and cycles, and that every experience, whether joyful or sorrowful, has its proper time and place within a larger order. Nothing lasts forever, and nothing arrives before its moment. The line invites patience and a kind of trust that even difficult seasons serve a purpose we may not immediately understand.
Context
The verse opens the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, one of the wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible. The chapter continues with a famous series of contrasting pairs, times to be born and to die, to mourn and to dance, to embrace and to refrain. The overall book reflects on the nature of human life, the limits of worldly striving, and the importance of accepting what lies beyond our control. The King James Version, completed in 1611, rendered these words in a cadence so memorable that they have echoed through literature, music, and everyday speech for centuries.
About the author
Ecclesiastes is attributed in its opening verses to a figure described as the Preacher, a son of David who was king in Jerusalem. Scholars have debated its authorship and date of composition for a very long time, placing it somewhere in the later period of ancient Israelite writing. Regardless of its precise origins, the book has been read as a profound meditation on mortality, meaning, and the quiet wisdom of accepting life as it comes.
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