Quotes About Ephemeral

Keep before your eyes the swift onset of oblivion, and the abysses of eternity before us and behind; mark how hollow are the echoes of applause, how fickle and undiscerning the judgments of professed admirers, and how puny the arena of human fame. For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of our own habitation but a minute corner in it; and how many are therein who will praise you, and what sort of men are they?

43. Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone.

short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash. To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.

Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us- how capricious they all are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space- and most of it uninhabited. How many people there will be to admire you, and who they are.

That way you'll see human life for what it is. Smoke. Nothing. Especially when you recall that once things alter they cease to exist through all the endless years to come. Then why such turmoil?

Consider how quickly all things are dissolved and resolved: the bodies and substances themselves, into the matter and substance of the world: and their memories into the general age and time of the world.

He who is greedy of credit and reputation after his death, doth not consider, that they themselves by whom he is remembered, shall soon after every one of them be dead; and they likewise that succeed those; until at last all memory, which hitherto by the succession of men admiring and soon after dying hath had its course, be quite extinct.

But by all means bear this in mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead; and soon not even your names will be left behind.

For all things fade and turn to fable, and quickly too, utter oblivion covers them like sand.

To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.

One man after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him; and all this in a short time. To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.

In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.

Everything transitory - the knower and the known

Soon you'll be ashes, or bones. A mere name, at most—and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, and trivial. Dogs snarling at each other. Quarreling children—laughing and then bursting into tears a moment later. Trust, shame, justice, truth—"gone from the earth and only found in heaven." Why are you still here? Sensory objects are shifting and unstable; our senses dim and easily deceived

all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way.

always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.

How many of them who came into the world at the same time when I did, are already gone out of it?

To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a speck of semen tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.

And as for thy life, consider what it is; a wind; not one constant wind neither, but every moment of an hour let out, and sucked in again.

remember this: in no time at all both you and he will be dead, and shortly after that not even our names will remain.

In sum, remember this, that within a very little while, both thou and he shall both be dead, and after a little while more, not so much as your names and memories shall be remaining.

Ricorda che tra non molto non sarai più nessuno, da nessuna parte, e non esisteranno più nessuna delle cose che vedi ora e nessuno di coloro che vivono ora. Tutti quanti gli esseri, infatti, per natura devono mutare, trasformarsi e corrompersi, perché altri possano subentrare ad essi.

2.12 Es propio de la facultad inteligente fijarse en cómo desaparece rápidamente todo, las propias personas en el universo, los recuerdos de esas personas en el tiempo; en

How many of them who came into the world at the same time when I did, are already gone out of it? LII.