Transience Quotes

If man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.

The world is nothing but a moment.

Ephemeral" It means 'which is in danger of speedy disappearance.

It's a town you come to for a short time.

Home is like the ship at sea, Sailing on eternally; Oft the anchor forth we cast, But can never make it fast.

This entire most beautiful order of good things is going to pass away after its measure has been exhausted; for both morning and evening were made in them.

So quick bright things come to confusion.​​​​​​

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.

But the impressions which the morning makes vanish with its dews, and not even the most "persevering mortal" can preserve the memory of its freshness to midday.

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.

A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent--sweet, not lasting; The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

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

As beauteous is the world, and many a joy Floats through its wide dominion. But, alas, When we would seize the winged good, it flies.

Every fair from fair sometime declines

Life is a campaign, a brief staying in a strange region.

And yet, after all, what is posthumous fame? Altogether vanity.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.

It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

Oh, how this spring of love resembleth, The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all beauty of the Sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away

There are people who, like new songs, are in vogue only for a time.

Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.

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

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die

In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable-boy's. Either both were received into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms.

All glory is fleeting.

He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.

'Tis brief, my lord...as woman's love.

The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything!

Some men are like ballads, that are in everyone's mouth a little while.

Women are as roses, whose fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.

Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.

Swift as shadow, short as any dream

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

I see that nature offers us a solution to everything that we call a problem. If you can just find your own nature and live it as naturally as you possibly can and be in a state of awe over everything, it doesn't matter where you are. It almost speaks to you and says, "There's no reason to be upset about anything. It will pass." If it's really going to pass, why stay confused by it and depressed by it. Just watch it go. It's on its way out. That's what I began to do.

All things are only transitory.

No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes than your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes

yet it seemsLife scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,But the torn petals strew the garden plot;And there's but common greenness after that.

Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend...or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are.

Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.

A rainbow which lasts for a quarter of an hour is looked at no longer.

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

Infinity is a fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish.

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

The longest wave is quickly lost in the sea.

The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.

Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and 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 any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.

Beauty's a doubtful good, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour; And beauty, blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

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

Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That's why it's good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion- it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.

You're beautiful, like a May fly.

Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered. Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

O the world is but a word; were it all yours to give it in a breath, how quickly were it gone!

All things fade and quickly turn to myth.

Summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Everything is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day.

Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion.