Geoff Ryman Quotes

Nothing gold can stay.

Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! It is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life... are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these.

The hardest thing for me is the sense of impermanence. All passes; nothing returns.

All beauty that surrounds us must one day perish.

The essence of what makes life beautiful is the fact that it can go away.

The beauty of things must be that they end.

Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either

Impermanence is the very essence of joy-the drop of bitterness that enables one to perceive the sweet.

Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever.

In life, and in sports, we all know that nothing lasts forever.

Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.

Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually.

Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.

Transience is one of the fundamental characteristics both of the human condition and of the political order.

The worldly stuff is not always going to be there and it could be taken away at any moment.

I am a forgettable leaf on a tree.

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Nothing can last forever. There isn't any memory, no matter how intense, that doesn't fade out at last.

All things are subject to decay and change.

The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. The destruction of Troy. The fall of the petals from fruit trees in blossom. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence - that is beautiful.

We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.

Even though in the world you are the most learned scholar of the time, Behold the vanishing of this world and this time!

You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?

Life was so short; so many beautiful things slipped away.