Impermanence Quotes

The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.

Far away, where the swallows take refuge in winter, lived a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, Elise. The eleven brothers--they were all princes--used to go to school with stars on their breasts and swords at their sides. They wrote upon golden slates with diamond pencils, and could read just as well without a book as with one, so there was no mistake about their being princes. Their sister Elise sat upon a little footstool of looking-glass, and she has a picture-book which had cost the half of a kingdom. Oh, these children were very happy; but it was not to last thus forever.

Sunsets are loved because they vanish. Flowers are loved because they go. The dogs of the field and the cats of the kitchen are loved because soon they must depart. These are not the sole reasons, but at the heart of morning welcomes and afternoon laughters is the promise of farewell. In the gray muzzle of an old dog we see goodbye. In the tired face of an old friend we read long journeys beyond returns.

The ego's form of happiness can't exist without unhappiness. The ego will be happy when something good happens but unhappy when it ends.

Great, it passes on (in constant flow).

On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long.

There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.

There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees.

Everything is perpetually becoming new.

No effect of work can be eternal.

A violent wind does not outlast the morning; a squall of rain does not outlast the day. Such is the course of Nature. And if Nature herself cannot sustain her efforts long, how much less can man!

That which you look upon as your own you may keep only so long as the world allows you to own it.

Nothing lasts forever, and no one can predict what will happen to me in the near or distant future.

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.

Man is in love and loveswhat vanishes,What more is there to say?

Time flows away like the water in the river.

Happiness is such a fleeting point of view - there's no such thing as continual happiness.

...nothing wonderful lasted forever. Joy was as fleeting as a shooting star that crossed the evening sky, ready to blink out at any moment.

There is only one thing in life which never changes, and it is change.

Watch the clouds. They will teach you about the world of form.

Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.

Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names.

Please is frail like a dewdrop, while it laughs it dies. But sorrow is strong and abiding. Let sorrowful love wake in your eyes.

A living body is not a fixed thing, but a flowing event, like a flame or a whirlpool.

The river where you set your foot just now is gone-those waters give way to this, now this.

If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.

Breakdowns come, and breakdowns go.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of Autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity.

The happiness that is derived from excitement is like a brilliant fire- soon it will go out.

Nothing 'gainst Times scythe can make defence.

Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed... Cool things become warm, the warm grows cool; the moist dries, the parched becomes moist... It is in changing that things find repose.

Beauty, wit,High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,Love, friendship, charity, are subjects allTo envious and calumniating time.

Amidst the rush of worldly comings and goings, I observe how all endings become beginnings

Everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.

There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.

What do we call the river? Every moment the water is changing, the shore is changing, every moment the environment is changing, what is the river then? It is the name of this series of changes.

Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day. Love's pleasure drives his love away, The painter's brush consumes his dreams.

Strong winds do not last all morning, hard rains do not last all day.

You cannot go into the same water twice.

Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away.

All things change, and you yourself are constantly wasting away. So also is the universe.

Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.

Body is the name of a series of changes.

Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour and is not reminded of the flux of all things?

All things flow, nothing abides. You cannot step into the same river twice, for the waters are continually flowing on. Nothing is permanent except change.

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow.

All is change; all yields its place and goes.

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.

The body is subject to the law of growth and decay, what grows must of necessity decay.

Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.

It was the last that remained of a past whose annihilation had not taken place because it was still in a process of annihilation, consuming itself from within, ending at every moment but never ending its ending.

Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws.

How soon will time cover all things.

I see nothing but Becoming. Be not deceived! It is the fault of your limited outlook and not the fault of the essence of things if you believe that you see firm land anywhere in the ocean of Becoming and Passing. You need names for things, just as if they had a rigid permanence, but the very river in which you bathe a second time is no longer the same one which you entered before

Life is a stranger's sojourn, a night at an inn.

I hold the view that death is rather like changing one's clothes when they are torn and old. It is not an end in itself. Yet death is unpredictable-you do not know when and howT it will take place.

Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.Nothing endures but change.

The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.