Quotes About Impermanence

Soon earth will cover us all. Then in time earth, too, will change; later, what issues from this change will itself in turn incessantly change, and so again will all that then takes its place, even unto the world's end. to let the mind dwell on these swiftly rolling billows of change and transformation is to know a contempt for all things mortal.

Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised; and the rememberer and the remembered; and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree; no not anyone with himself; and the whole earth too is a point.

Consider how quickly all things are dissolved and resolved:

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say. It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to subsist in consequence of change.

None of us have much time. And yet you act as if things were eternal—the way you fear and long for them.… Before long, darkness. And whoever buries you mourned in their turn.

You should always look on human life as short and cheap. Yesterday sperm: tomorrow a mummy or ashes.

23. Nature takes substance and makes a horse. Like a sculptor with wax. And then melts it down and uses the material for a tree. Then for a person. Then for something else. Each existing only briefly. It does the container no harm to be put together, and none to be taken apart.

Disturbance comes only from within- from our own perceptions. Everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist

There is a kind of river of things passing into being and Time is a violent torrent. For no sooner is each seen, than it has been carried away, and another is being carried by, and that, too, will be carried away.

The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.

And indeed he who pursues pleasure as good, and avoids pain as evil, is guilty of impiety.

Don't be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you'll be no one, nowhere.

That way you'll see human life for what it is. Smoke. Nothing. Especially when you recall that once things alter they cease to exist through all the endless years to come. Then why such turmoil?

There is nothing new: all things are both familiar and short-lived.

It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to subsist in consequence of change. 43.

Consider how quickly all things are dissolved and resolved: the bodies and substances themselves, into the matter and substance of the world: and their memories into the general age and time of the world.

But by all means bear this in mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead; and soon not even your names will be left behind.

Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small—small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.

To suffer change can be no hurt; as no benefit it is, by change to attain to being. The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the world. For as soon as anything hath appeared, and is passed away, another succeeds, and that also will presently out of sight.

For all things fade and turn to fable, and quickly too, utter oblivion covers them like sand.

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say (I. C. 19). 42. It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to subsist in consequence of change. 43. Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.

To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.

The next, that all these things, which now thou seest, shall within a very little while be changed, and be no more: and ever call to mind, how many changes and alterations in the world thou thyself hast already been an eyewitness of in thy time. This world is mere change, and this life, opinion.

One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within. The other is that all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The universe is transformation; life is opinion.