Quotes About Transience

we are merely renting these bodies of ours. You came into this world on an in breath. You will exit on an out breath. Hence, we say that someone has . . . ? 'Expired'!

Not so much living, but a hovering without sense.

All the world is moving, even sand from one shore to another is being shuttled. I live my life half afraid, and half shouting at the trains when they thunder by. This letter to you is both.

Everything that now exists, no matter how great and good it is, lasts for a time, fulfills a purpose, and then passes on. And so it will be with all the works of art that now exist; an eternal veil of forgetfulness will lie over them, just as there is now over those things that came before.

Here for example the beautiful silver mirror of a river swells, a boy falls in, the water ripples sweetly around his locks, he sinks - and after a short while the silver mirror swells as before.

But holding Michael had always been like holding a little person, who knew that his feeding would end, who knew that if you were picked up you would be put down, that the comfort came but also went.

holding Michael had always been like holding a little person, who knew that his feeding would end, who knew that if you were picked up you would be put down, that the comfort came but also went. Without knowing what it was, I'd felt that tension in his little groping arms and fitful legs, the discomfort of the foreknowledge

But holding Michael had always been like holding a little person, who knew that his feeding would end, who knew that if you were picked up you would be put down, that the comfort came but also went. Without knowing what it was, I'd felt that tension in his little groping arms and fitful legs, the discomfort of the foreknowledge

With children, everything's already happening and then over with. It happens while you're trying to keep up and gone by the time you arrive at a view of things.

That's how he'd thought of most people—appearing in your life like foundlings on the doorstep, only to be swept away later as if by flood.

Mina estaba sentada, hermosa y pálida como la primera nieve que a veces, en otoño, besa las últimas flores y que pronto se fundirá en un agua amarga.

Your days are short here this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don't forget when you leave why you came.

And realize that maybe they came into your life, not to be there forever, but to teach you something that will make you ready when forever finds you.

It's amazing how you cross paths with people. You work intimately, and then you never see them again the rest of your life, or even speak.

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.

I work a lot, so I don't really live anywhere for very long periods of time.

I do not ask for the riches that perish or the fame that fades away like a morning mist.

I don't like anything permanent; I have to be able to flee. You have to be able to flee at a moment's notice.

When I look at my own work, I see love, loss, and loneliness. Part of it might be that I was an army brat. I moved around all the time. There was a sense of nothing being permanent.

Creatures of a day, what is a man? What is he not? Mankind is a dream of a shadow. But when a god-given brightness comes, a radiant light rests on men, and a gentle life.

Men are the dreams of a shadow.

Creatures of a day, what is any one? What is he not? Man is but a dream of a shadow. Yet when there comes as a gift of heaven a gleam of sunshine, there rest upon men a radiant light and, aye, a gentle life.

Creatures of a day. What is someone? What is no one? Man is the dream of a shadow.

Creatures of a day! What is man?