Quotes About Impermanence

They are such thin things, these lives of ours; cheap got, cheap lost, mere flickers against the ever dark, brief shadows on a wall. This life no more substantial than breath, a light which fills the chambers of our bodies, and is gone.

Isn't man but a blossom taken by the wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this Land of the Gods real and everlasting?

At the heart of all truth lies a radiant cloud of unknowing, a glorious nugget of doubt, a shining core of impermanence.

Rarely did events play out as imagined, in any case. The order of future events was transient. In the same way that the past was reconfigured by selective memory, future events, too, were moving targets. One could only act on instinct, grab hold of an intuited perfect moment, and spring into action.

There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands.

One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish.

One should not believe too easily in a life which can easily vanish.

I wish i could press snowflakes in a book like flowers.

Even the tiniest things mean something. Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He's telling you that living things don't last—it's all temporary. Death in life. That's why they're called natures mortes. Maybe you don't see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is.

living things don't last—it's all temporary. Death in life. That's why they're called natures mortes. Maybe you don't see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is.

That life—whatever else it is—is short.

They want it all as detailed as possible because even the tiniest things mean something. Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life -- a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple -- the painter is giving you a secret message. He's telling you that living things don't last -- it's all temporary. Death in life. That's why they're called natures mortes. Maybe you don't see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer -- there it is.

There are times when images blow to fluff, and comparisons stiffen and shrivel.

You can't take it with you, and even if you did, it would probably melt.

I was quite stuck by the Dali Lama's phrase of passing through difficulties. We often feel that suffering will engulf us, it that suffering will never end, but if we can realize that it, too, will pass, or as the Buddhists say, that it is impermanent, we can survive them more easily, and perhaps what we have to learn from them, find meaning in then, so that we come out the other side, not embittered but emboldened. The depth of our suffering can also result in the height of our joy.

La principale differenza tra una cosa che potrebbe rompersi e una cosa che non può in alcun modo rompersi è che quando una cosa che non può in alcun modo rompersi si rompe, di solito risulta impossibile da riparare.

Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long

No civilization has survived forever. All move toward dissolution, one after the other, like waves of the sea falling upon the shore. None, including ours, is exempt from the universal fate.

An old poet, Robert Herrick, put it like this:    " Our life is short, and our days run As fast away as does the sun; And, as a vapour or a drop of rain Once lost, can ne'er be found again.

Just as your lungs breathe in and then breathe out, it's necessary for things to fall away so that life can breathe new again. This is one of the laws of the universe: that everything you see, taste, touch, and feel will eventually disappear back into the source from which it came, only to be reborn and appear yet again, receding again back into the source..

For mortal kind taketh thought only for the day, and hath no more surety than the shadow of smoke.

When life is good do not take it for granted as it will pass. Be mindful, be compassionate and nurture the circumstances that find you in this good time so it will last longer. When life falls apart always remember that this too will pass. Life will have its unexpected turns.

Instead, understand that this world is just the play of the senses. It's the five khandhas doing their thing; it has nothing to do with you. It's just people being people, the world being the world. Sometimes

But Buddha commanded Patacara to recover her presence of mind. Her madness left her, and she worshipped at Buddha's feet. "Death of people we love is inevitable," said the Buddha. "It is a waste of life to brood or become bitter. No one can shelter us from the fate that awaits us. It is therefore incumbent that we set off on the path to nibbana.