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.

There is one man, no more but himself alone, having neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of his careful travail, his eyes cannot be satisfied with riches. Yet, doth he not remember himself, and say, "For whom do I take such travail? For whose pleasure do I thus consume away my life?" This is also a vain and miserable thing.

And I perceived, that all men living under the Sun, go with the second child, that cometh up in the stead of the other.

For what befalleth the children of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other, and they have all one breath; and man hath no pre-eminence above the beast: for all is vanity.

For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are taken with the snare, like them are the children of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!

As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest not the work of God who doeth all.

Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no longer be admonished.

Though a stillborn child does not see the sun and is not conscious, it has more rest than he.