Quotes About Transience

And these Things, which live by perishing, know you are praising them; transient, they look to us for deliverance: us, the most transient of all. They want us to change them, utterly, in our invisible heart, within - oh endlessly - within us! Whoever we may be at last. Earth, isn't this what you want: to arise within us, invisible? Isn't it your dream to be wholly invisible someday?

a band of painted horses, all from that bright land that lingers for so long before it fades

We let go of one or the other always yet again: this joyfulness and that sadness. We still do not own either of them.

Things are not all so easy to grasp and to express as most people would have us believe; most events are inexpressible, and take place in a sphere that no word has ever entered. Most inexpressible of all are works of art, existences full of secrets whose life continues alongside ours, whilst ours is transitory.

We are not permitted to linger, even with what is most intimate. From images that are full, the spirit plunges on to others that suddenly must be filled; there are no lakes till eternity. Here, falling is best. To fall from the mastered emotion into the guessed-at, and onward.

Deja que todo te suceda: la belleza y el terror. Solo sigue adelante. Ningún sentimiento es definitivo

of all the disfigured and decaying Things, which, after all, are essentially nothing more than accidental remains from another time and from a life that is not and should not be ours.

Und wir: Zuschauer, immer, überall, dem allen zugewandt und nie hinaus! Uns überfüllts. Wir ordnens. Es zerfällt. Wir ordnens wieder und zerfallen selbst.

Look, the trees are; the houses we live in still stand. We alone go past them like an exchange of vapors. And things conspire to tell us nothing, half in shame, perhaps, half in unspoken hope.

Ein Mal jedes, nur ein Mal. Ein Mal und nicht mehr. Und wir auch ein Mal. Nie wieder. Aber dieses ein Mal gewesen zu sein, wenn auch nur ein Mal: irdisch gewesen zu sein, scheint nicht widerrufbar.

Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit, als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten; sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde. Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit. Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt. Und sieh dir andre an: es ist in allen. Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.

Most events are inexpressible, and take place in a sphere that no word has ever entered. Most inexpressible of all are works of art, existences full of secrets whose life continues alongside ours, while ours is transitory.

There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.

The days come and go but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who ever could clutch it?

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same

Every thing looks permanent until its secret is known.

To whom does this body belong? To the one that feeds it, the mother and father who bring it into being, to the master that buys its services, to the fire that consumes it finally, or to the dogs that gnaw its bones after the fire has done its work?

We trivialize the body in our indulgences. We treat it as a means to other ends. But when death comes, we grasp at it and cling to it because it is all we have left.

Everything gains only momentary explanation.

they're here for a moment and then gone. At best they have liftoff power, or, to use a different analogy, they are like periodic flashes of lightning on a dark road, with no guiding power.

Sunsets we always liked because they only happen once and go away. But, Lena, that's sad. No, if the sunset stayed and we got bored, that would be a real sadness.

Sunsets are loved because they vanish. Flowers are loved because they go. The dogs of the field and the cats of the kitchen are loved because soon they must depart. These are not the sole reasons, but at the heart of morning welcomes and afternoon laughters is the promise of farewell. In the gray muzzle of an old dog we see goodbye. In the tired face of an old friend we read long journeys beyond returns.

The girl who had known the weather and never been burnt by fireflies, the girl who had known what dandelions meant rubbed off on your chin. Then, she would be gone.