All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,(A)
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.

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2-11 Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That’s what the Quester says.]
    There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke.
What’s there to show for a lifetime of work,
    a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
    but nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old planet earth.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
    then does it again, and again—the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north.
    Around and around and around it blows,
    blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
    but the sea never fills up.
The rivers keep flowing to the same old place,
    and then start all over and do it again.
Everything’s boring, utterly boring—
    no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
    boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
    what happened will happen again.
There’s nothing new on this earth.
    Year after year it’s the same old thing.
Does someone call out, “Hey, this is new”?
    Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.
Nobody remembers what happened yesterday.
    And the things that will happen tomorrow?
Nobody’ll remember them either.
    Don’t count on being remembered.

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All things are hard: man cannot explain them by word. The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing.

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Everything is ·boring [wearisome],
    ·so boring that you don’t even want to talk about it [L beyond words].
·Words come again and again to our ears,
    but we never hear enough [L The ear is never satisfied with hearing],
    nor ·can we ever really see all we want to see [L the eye with seeing].

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