Ephemeral Nature of Life Quotes

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.

The Hour-Hand of Life --- Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerably many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea - all these speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely. For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions in the symphony of real life.

Life is precarious, and life is precious. Don't presume you will have it tomorrow, and don't waste it today.

What makes life valuable is that it doesn't last forever.

He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else.

Remember that even if you were to live for three thousand years, or thirty thousand, you could not lose any other life than the one you have, and there will be no other life after it. So the longest and the shortest lives are the same. The present moment is shared by all living creatures, but the time that is past is gone forever. No one can lose the past or the future, for if they don't belong to you, how can they be taken from you?

Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.

If there's one thing I learned, it's that nobody is here forever. You have to live for the moment, each and every day . . . the here, the now.

We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do.

I think death is not simply the last few moments of life, death is something that runs throughout the whole of life. Each of our moments is not only the possibility of affirmation, but it's also we're saying farewell at each moment to something.

Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.

But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them.

We live a dying dream, If you know what I mean...

While as he yet doth breath extend, no man is blest; behold the end.

Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?

O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken primrose fading timelessly.

With life as short as a half-taken breath, don't plant anything but love.

There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands. And yet, this pouring, this flood of encounters, struggles, dreams...

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

While we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone.

Something was wrong with a world where people came and went so easily.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

Life is only precious because it ends, kid.

Brief is this existence, as a visit in a strange house. The path to be pursued is poorly lit by a flickering consciousness.