Quotes About Impermanence

George R.R. Martin

The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Oh, sí, hay muchas cosas que no comprendemos. Pasan los años, cientos, miles, ¿y qué ve un hombre en su vida? Unos pocos veranos, unos pocos inviernos. Miramos las montañas y decimos que son eternas, así nos lo parecen... pero, en el curso del tiempo, las montañas se alzan y caen, cambia el curso de los ríos, mueren estrellas en el cielo y grandes ciudades se hunden debajo del mar. Incluso los dioses mueren. Todo cambia.

We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem … but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Later, Maester Luwin built a little pottery boy and dressed him in Bran's clothes and flung him off the wall into the yard below, to demonstrate what would happen to Bran if he fell. That had been fun, but afterward Bran just looked at the maester and said, "I'm not made of clay. And anyhow, I never fall.

Macaulay is well for awhile, but one wouldn't live under Niagara.

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

Time is that in which all things pass away.

You can't make souffle rise twice.

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Life is not about significant details, illuminated in a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.

Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.

Happiness, greatness, pride-nothing is secure, nothing keeps.

Oh, how quickly the world's glory passes away.

The present offers itself to our touch for only an instant of time and then eludes the senses.

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

Once in Persia reigned a king Who upon his signet ring Graved a maxim true and wise, Which if held before the eyes Gave him counsel at a glance Fit for every change and chance. Solemn words, and these are they: "Even this shall pass away."

No wonder can last more than three days.

Words writ in waters.

To say that my grief will be eternal would be ridiculous - nothing is eternal.

Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing: it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustrations that it creates.

Ali svaka svetlost brzo dogori i svaka sve?anost pro?e.

Dead people are infinities of maybes.

We begin to die with our first breath. Death is inside us, ticking closer, closer, with every beat of our heart. It is the end no man can escape. Yet we cling to life, we worship it despite its transience.