When we compare the present life of men on Earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through a banqueting hall on a winter's day. After a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even so, man appears on Earth for a little while, but of what went before this life or what will follow, we know nothing.
- Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book II, Chapter 13)
