Life Is a Dream (Spanish: La vida es sueño) is a Spanish language play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. First published in 1635 (or possibly early in 1636), it is a philosophical allegory regarding the human situation and the mystery of life. Focusing on Segismundo, Prince of Poland, the central argument is the conflict between free will and fate. The play remains one of Calderón's best-known and most studied works.
Read more about Life Is A Dream: Synopsis, The Rosaura Subplot, Segismundo's Soliloquy, Segismundo's Conclusions, Themes and Motifs, Adaptations
Famous quotes containing the words life is a, life is, life and/or dream:
“A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless—for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.”
—Washington Irving (1783–1859)
“Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others—first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enormous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one’s own interests and desires. Carried to its “perfection,” it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“... there has been a very special man in my life for the past year. All I’ll say about him is that he’s kind, warm, mature, someone I can trust—and he’s not a politician.”
—Donna Rice (b. c. 1962)
“If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)