Quotes About Transience

La vida es un frágil aliento, el delicado rumor de la seda al doblarse y se va tan deprisa, esfumándose, como los hilos de humo que desprenden las últimas pavesas de la hoguera

Tutto ciò che è nel tempo passerà con il tempo e nulla di ciò che appartiene a questo mondo transitorio e fragile merita più di un rispetto un po' distaccato e di un assenso ironico. Si può benissimo morire per la propria patria, per le proprie idee, per quelli che si amano. Non c'è niente di più onorevole. Ma soltanto ciò che è eterno merita un affetto senza riserve.

It's amazing that God lavishes so much attention to detail in a body that won't last, but He does that everywhere: in that tiny, delicate, finely veined alpine flower that quivers in the mountain chill and then fades and dies, as well as in my body. I am a wonder!

Certain acts dazzle us and light up blurred surfaces, if our eyes are sharp enough to see them in a flash, for the beauty of a living thing can be grasped only fleetingly. To pursue it during its changes leads us inevitably to the moment when it ceases, for it cannot last a lifetime. And to analyze it, that is, to pursue it in time with the sight and the imagination, is to view it in its decline, for following the marvelous moment in which it reveals itself, it diminishes in intensity.

Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Life shouldn't be easy to lose. It's everything we have. The only thing we have, really--then gone so fast.

Once I saw large waves Crested with white-caps; A driving wind Transformed the caps Into scudding spray. "Swift souls," I addressed them— They turned towards me Startled Sea-descending faces; But I, not they, Felt the pang of transience.

L'argent est du songe pur. Le contempler, c'est faire défiler devant soi l'interminable procession des choses de ce monde.

To my garden I thee hie--- For soon all summer's beauties die; For lasting gems, for future frock Seek not the soaring bee--- Look down!----the rock.

In 4.5 billion years there will arrive the demise of your phenomenology and your utopian politics, and there'll be no one there to toll the death knell or hear it.

No tienes nada, no puedes tener ni retener nada, y he aquí lo que necesitas amar y saber. He aquí lo que corresponde a un saber de amor. Ama lo que se te escapa, ama a aquel que se va. Ama que se vaya

fish and visitors stink in 3 days.

Talking with her was like listening to a ballad on a radio station that fades in and out as you drive, sometimes clear and sentimental and tuned perfectly to the passing land, sometimes filled with static, lost, a song played too many times.

Lo más importante de esta vida era que moríamos.

The trouble is, I am not at peace with myself; I am not always something, and if for once I am something, I pay for it by being nothing for months on end.' —Kafka, quoted by Canetti

Plenty of organisms live for a season, in order for those who come next to have a chance, Mayflies, daffodils, the octopus. We can accept that?' 'Well, we're hardwired not to accept our own demise. Daffodils are a lot more chill about it.' 'Okay, but we can be like daffodils together.

In his diary of the summer he wrote: " 'He makes His ministers a flame of fire.' Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul—short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him. 'Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God.

The light is amber, the air still; the daylilies have folded in on themselves. Soon, the hooded blue of dusk will fall, followed by the darkness of night and the sky writing of the stars, indecipherable to us mortals, despite our attempts to force narrative upon them.

Isn't it really true that life is so beautiful because it's so fleeting and fragile?

I know you may not stay with me forever," he said just last night, "but I'm so grateful to have you now, and for as long as you can stay.

Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible.

She thought she need not worry about her youth; it wasted itself spontaneously, like sunshine elsewhere or firelight in an empty room.

But if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass.

There's something about a showgirl that always breaks my heart. Youth and beauty-they're such a short lease, girlie.