Quotes About Transience

Every experience that arises passes away.

the reality of experience is an ever-changing river. Direct perception drops beneath the names of things to show us their ephemeral, mysterious nature. When we bring our attention to the direct perception of experience, we become more alive and free.

psychology—that life is an array of constantly changing sensations, some of them pleasant, some of them unpleasant, and some of them neutral. Our unconscious response is to grasp after the pleasant and to try to resist the unpleasant, so that we are always at war with the basic transience of our experience. We cannot really come to rest with things as they arise and depart.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

You wander around near Independence Park and the Hall of the People, and you get a sense that they will be there forever. But forever is a long time. The people who lived in Washington before the waters came probably thought that about their city. But it's all temporary, baby. Perpetuity is an illusion.

A snowflake fell into my hand, a tiny, fragile gem, a frosty crystal flowerlet with petals, but no stem. I wondered at the beauty of its intricate design, I breathed, the snowflake vanished, but for moments, it was mine.

And, if I said my love for you is like the hare's breath, would you feel it to be transient? So slight a thing? Or would you see it as life-giving? Wild? A thing that fills the blood, and sets the hare running?

There's no such thing as this baby, this toddler, this little person, because it's quicksilver, there's no such thing as anybody. We shouldn't have children, it's impossible, but if you want children, and you can't have them, then that's its own impossible. It's impossible to lose them, but it happens, it happened to my mother, it's happening all the time.

The empty swing set reminds us of this— that what is bad won't be bad forever, and what is good can sometimes last a long, long time.

Le cirque est reparti, laissant un rond dans l'herbe Et puis moi je suis seule et je tourne dedans Je tourne comme un vieux cheval. Adieu, superbe, adieu vorace instant quand nous marchions ardents.

La libertad pertenece al orden de los relámpagos, no al de la luz eléctrica.

J'ai reconnu le bonheur au bruit qu'il a fait en partant

Nothing last forever, only the joy and happiness that turns into memories, turns eternal.(c)

The life of a flower is short and full of suffering. Today will be the end of yours as well!

In a way, a garden is the most useless of creations, the most slippery of creations: it is not like a painting or a piece of sculpture—it won't accrue value as time goes on. Time is its enemy' time passing is merely the countdown for the parting between garden and gardener.

Possessions are mere transient effects that come when they are required, and after their purpose has been served, pass away.

Don Pepe was a Mexican man: a fatalist. He meant to impart much more than comfort. He meant that all good things would also end. All joy would crumble. And death would visit each and every one of them. He meant that regimes and ancient orders and cultures would all collapse. The world as we know it becomes a new world overnight.

Miguel Angel," he said, "It isn't hard to die. Everybody does it. Even flies do it. Everyone here is doing it. We're all terminal." He had a tear in his eye; Big Angel could see it brimming. "Your schedule is just different from mine.

Everything beautiful has its moment, and then passes away.

Otra de esas vidas que te rozan, se anudan un breve tiempo con la tuya, y luego se dejan llevar por la corriente hacia otras latitudes

Paintings are like children. It's nice to have them around the house, but not necessarily forever.

One day you will hear the sound of time rustling as it slips through your fingers like sand.

When we ran, if we chose to, we ran like flashes of silk. We had the vigor of those freshly born. Relatively speaking. And no, we wouldn't be like this forever. We knew it, on a rational level. But the idea that those garbage-like figures that tottered around the great house were a vision of what lay in store—hell no. Had they had goals once? A simple sense of self-respect? They shamed us. They were a cautionary tale.

Consider, and you will find that almost all the transactions of the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing for consulship?yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.