I explored with my mind how to let my body enjoy life with wine and how to grasp folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what is good for people to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

For, just like the fool, there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man, since in the days to come both will be forgotten. How is it that the wise man dies just like the fool?

Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm; but how can one person alone keep warm?

A man may father a hundred children and live many years. No matter how long he lives, if he is not satisfied by good things and does not even have a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.

What advantage then does the wise man have over the fool? What advantage is there for the poor person who knows how to conduct himself before others?

The struggles of fools weary them,
for they don’t know how to go to the city.

Just as you don’t know the path of the wind,
or how bones develop in the womb of a pregnant woman,
so you don’t know the work of God who makes everything.