Quotes About Impermanence

Walter Murch, the sound editor and film director, said, "Music was the main poetic metaphor for that which could not be preserved

As the ancient philosopher Heraclitus remarked, 'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.

How long does a building stand before it falls? How long does a contract last? How long will brothers share the inheritance before they quarrel? How long does hatred, for that matter, last? Time after time the river has risen and flooded. The insect leaves the cocoon to live but a minute. How long is the eye able to look at the sun? From the very beginning nothing at all has lasted.

Le mieux est d'éviter de nouer des relations. Car rien ne dure.

For him, poetry was an inverted form of sympathetic magic: what it tries to preserve disappears, — David Jauss, from section 6 of "The Wandering Between Worlds," Black Warrior Review (vol. 23, no. 1, Fall/Winter 1996)

The world is not impermanent if one lives there after knowing God.

All forms are transitory, that is why all religions say, "God has no form".

We examine everything in existence and we come to see that everything is transitory and temporal, that which is left over is God, is eternity, is the Self.

Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.

Such is life, here today, gone tomorrow! Nothing goes with one, except one's merit and demerit; good and evil deeds follow one even after death.

Nothing lasts forever - except forever. That's the good news. It's a good thing that nothing lasts forever because things would get terribly boring.

All good things vanish in less than a day, Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year, The earth is hell when you leav'st to appear.

Great art is an instant arrested in eternity.

Happiness, sadness, loss and gain all pass away. What they do to us is what remains.

Everything is passing ... enjoy its momentariness

Happiness and sorrow are twins, let them come and go like clouds.

You search endlessly for permanent happiness in a world where nothing is permanent.

Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.

What is the happiness ? Is it really happiness ? Nothing stable, just happen, stay and decay... Everything is impermanence, dissatisfaction and nothing can ever belong to itself

We can't wait to be happy until we remove one hundred percent of suffering. That moment will never exist.

Seeing that nothing is solid or permanent you begin to make yourself at home in the unknown.

No matter how many years you sit doing zazen, you will never become anything special.

In the world we live in everything militates in favor of things that have not yet happened, of things that will never happen again.

How can He be perfect? Everything He ever makes...dies.