Quotes About Transience

Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maples, singing songs, drinking wine and diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; caring not a whit for the poverty staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call ukiyo.

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.

Life keeps on happening and doesn't need us to think about it. It's constantly arising and ceasing every single moment.

Life is a flash of lightning in the dark of night. It is a brief time of tremendous potential.

It is odd that the Bible says, 'God created man,' whereas it is the other way round: man has created God. It is odd that the Bible says, 'The body is mortal, the soul is immortal,' whereas even here the contrary is true: the body (its matter) is eternal; the soul (the form of the body) is transitory.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

Bands don't last. Bands don't last forever - it's a rarity when they do.

The real problem with happiness is neither its pursuers nor their books; it's happiness itself. Happiness is like beauty: part of its glory lies in its transience.

One should approach life with a realisation that nothing is permanent.

When your mates break up with their boyfriends, it's hard to see, but not all relationships last forever. Let's be realistic.

Even if you live forty or fifty years in this world, and then die, you cannot take all your goods with you.

I've been around long enough to know that empires come and empires go, and I can't tell how long the Google empire is going to last - but I'm pretty convinced that the answer is less than forever.

I think fame is hard in any capacity. It's so fleeting; it's not anything that you can really grab.

life (pause) is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.

On that night I was left with only the truth that nothing of our personality survives after death, that in the end all that was Misha Vainberg would evaporate along with the styles and delusions of his epoch, leaving behind not one flutter of his sad heavy brilliance, not one damp spot around which his successors could congregate to appreciate his life and times.

any life ending in death is essentially pointless.

I have lived at Cold Mountain These thirty long years. Yesterday I called on friends and family: More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs. Slowly consumed, like fire down a candle; Forever flowing, like a passing river. Now, morning, I face my lone shadow: Suddenly my eyes are bleared with tears.

This won't last forever, but it's wonderful while it's happening.

From the top of the ramp he looked back and saw them go, their glasses crashing to the flagstoned paths and brick paved patios, their cigarettes dropping like poisoned fireflies. "I loved you," the girl said. "Or at least I liked you. You'll be gone in a moment and I can't even ask you to kiss me, because I'm going to be sick." "We're still here," John Edward told her, "both of us." And she was gone.

The game is nearly over,' she whispered. 'That is what I came to tell you. Did you think it would go on forever?

Most of all, he loved Celia Johnson, her hats,her face,her cracked porcelain voice: 'This can't last. This misery can't last.Nothing lasts really,neither happiness nor despair.Not even life lasts long....There'll come a time in the future when i shan't mind about this any more....

Everything, no matter how beautiful, is only with us for awhile.

This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro.

Just as there never died a man, quoth he, But he had lived on earth in some degree, Just so there never lived a man, he said, In all this world, but must be sometime dead. This world is but a thoroughfare of woe, And we are pilgrims passing to and fro;