Quotes About Permanence

She wasn't a bird in a cage. A bird in a cage, when the cage is opened, can still fly away. She was a bird embroidered onto a screen — a white bird in clouds of gold stitched onto a screen of melancholy satin. The years passed; the bird's feathers darkened, mildewed, and were eaten by moths, but the bird stayed on the screen even in death.

But it is not that easy, is it? I seek a lasting relationship, something permanent in a world of change, in which all is transitory, ephemeral, and full of pain.

How many things pass through time randomly detached from the bodies and voices of persons. My mother knew the art of making clothes last forever.

Para escrever é preciso desejar que alguma coisa sobreviva a ti

Alles bewoog. De vuurzee onder de aardkorst, de ovens van de sterren, en de planeten, en de universa, en het licht in de duisternis, en de stilte in de ijskou. Maar ik voelde...dat angst er bij mij niet in slaagde wortel te schieten. Alles wat op me afkwam –…– zou voorbijgaan en ik –... Ã¢â'¬â€œ, ik zou overeind blijven, ik was de punt van de passer die altijd stilstaat terwijl het potlood eromheen draait en cirkels trekt.

Alguna vez te encontrarás frente a tus acciones convertidas en piedras irrevocables como ésa, me dijeron de niña al enseñarme la imagen de un dios, que ahora no recuerdo cuál era. Todo se olvida, pero se olvida sólo por un tiempo. En aquel entonces también las palabras me parecieron de piedra, sólo que de una piedra fluida y cristalina. La piedra se solidificaba al terminar cada palabra, para quedar escrita para siempre en el tiempo

I went on to the balcony, lit a cigarette, and looked at the museum, wondering whether it would still be there in a thousand years. When would it not be there anymore?

The computer on the desk of the student in school knows no history. It is not like a book, worn at the edges by human hands. No little child has written a note in it, long ago. It will not be passed down to the children of the children who use it. Its "meaning" is that there is no enduring meaning.

It goes without saying that mastering a skill engenders a sense of satisfaction, but the feeling is ephemeral and dissipates once on the plateau of competency; because this kind of satisfaction is directed toward yourself, whereas the investment of learning about the world is repaid in love—a love of the world, a joy of living, which is permanent and will last till the grave.

Seneca has a wealth of such reminders: 'Everything is dangerous and deceptive and more changeable than the weather; everything tumbles about and passes at fortune's behest into its opposite; and in all this tumult of human affairs there is nothing we can be sure of except death alone.' Since there is 'no way to know the point where death lies waiting for you, … you must wait for death at every point'.

We are now integrated into American society and I don't like the word fashionable, because fashionable means that it's going to pass. It's not like that anymore.

La belleza no es más que aquello que podría ser eterno

Hoy es siempre todavía. Incluso después de hoy sigue siendo siempre todavía.

What words say does not last. The words last. Because words are always the same, and what they say is never the same.

Lo que dicen las palabras no dura. Duran las palabras. Porque las palabras son siempre las mismas y lo que dicen no es nunca lo mismo.

Por qué no será posible que las cosas que uno más quiere se queden para siempre con uno?

T]he Pictures of the Pen shall outlast those of the Pencil, and even Worlds themselves.

Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever.

Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever.

awareness of our mortality causes pain because our most deep-seated need is for permanence and our most pervasive fear is separation from those we love. The Psalmist tells us that there is wisdom in the awareness that our days are numbered (Psalm 90:12). But in that awareness lies pain as well.

More important, her curated self was a person she would admire—a hugely successful, hardworking executive. And she succeeded! But nothing is permanent, and now she felt like every hour of work was giving her less than the last, and not just less happiness—less power and prestige, too. Her problem was that the "special one" she had created was less than a full person. She had traded herself for a symbol of herself, you might say.

That which comes and goes, rises and sets, is born and dies is the ego. That which always abides, never changes, and is devoid of qualities is the Self.

A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.

If someone gave me the chance to create something, I put myself into it. I just want to try to do something that will last forever and that won't leave people saying, 'Gee, it could have been better, it could've been this, it could've been that.'