The present life of men on earth, O King . . . seems to me to be like this: as if, when you are sitting at dinner with your chiefs and ministers in wintertime . . . one of the sparrows from outside flew very quickly through the hall, as if it came in one door and soon went out through the other. In that actual time it is indoors it is not touched by the winter’s storm; but yet the tiny period of calm is over in a moment, and having come out of the winter it soon returns to the winter and slips out of your sight. Man’s life appears to be more or less like this; and of what may follow it, or what preceded it, we are absolutely ignorant. The Venerable Bede

The present life of men on earth, O King . . . seems to me to be like this: as if, when you are sitting at
dinner with your chiefs and ministers in wintertime . . . one of the sparrows from outside flew very
quickly through the hall, as if it came in one door and soon went out through the other. In that actual
time it is indoors it is not touched by the winter’s storm; but yet the tiny period of calm is over in a
moment, and having come out of the winter it soon returns to the winter and slips out of your sight.
Man’s life appears to be more or less like this; and of what may follow it, or what preceded it, we
are absolutely ignorant.
The Venerable Bede