Quotes About Transience

Do not be amazed when a man grows rich, when the splendor of his house increases.

For when he dies, he will carry nothing away; his abundance will not follow him down.

Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.

How suddenly they are laid waste, completely swept away by terrors!

He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

But like mortals you will die, and like rulers you will fall.”

Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind.

For in Your sight a thousand years are but a day that passes, or a watch of the night.

You whisk them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—

in the morning it springs up new, but by evening it fades and withers.

For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like glowing embers.

My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.

They will perish, but You remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing You will change them, and they will be passed on.

As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field;

when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more.

I am fading away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.

May they be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it can grow,

Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

When you glance at wealth, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.

for riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to every generation.

“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.

I hated all for which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.

All go to one place; all come from dust, and all return to dust.