Impermanence Quotes

“Water surging
bestowing life on us
entered the city and
left by tearing gardens of life,
Even one who looked like human
in meetings outside
sold a no-man inside the city
and dissolved into that act.”
― Suman Pokhrel

“Everything becomes nothing within moments / As I fall deep within the torments”
― Ivan Catanzaro, The Meaning of Life Is to Fight: A Collection of Poems

“(On time) Time is not a standalone entity, it is the measure of change. Therefore, without form, time is nil.”
― Alyssa Skyes, Two Seconds of Eternity: An Experience in Another Dimension

“We live, we love, and one day, we must let go.”
― Ken Breniman, Subversive Acts of Humanity : A Survival Guide for Choosing Evolution over Self-Destruction

“Man is but a bubble. The lesson of this proverb is that there is nothing so fragile, so fleeting and so empty as the life of man. A bubble is that round swollen empty thing which we watch in water as it grows and vanishes in a moment of time. Thus Marcus Terentius Varro in the preface to his book on agriculture: 'Bearing in mind', he says, 'that I must make haste; for if, as they say, man is but a bubble, much more is this true of an old man. My eightieth year reminds me to pack my baggage, before I bid farewell to life.' . . . Nor could one think of anything, in fact, which would give a better picture of the utter nothingness of this life of ours.

The Adages of Erasmus”
― Erasmus

“We vanish. That may be the kismet of the body. But we leave imprints. That may be the proof we were ever here.

Time forgets us. That may be its duty. But we remember each other. That may be our defiance.

The world moves on. That may be its nature. But we love, we lose, we long. That may be what makes it worth watching.

We break. That may be the cost of living. But we mend. That may be the reason we keep going.

Nothing lasts. That may be the rule. But we carve our names into cursory moments. That may be enough.”
― Monika Ajay Kaul

“We have to recognise impermanence on a gut level, not just as an abstract idea. Everything changes—things crack, people change, situations shift—and resisting that truth fuels endless fear, restlessness, and an unrealistic attitude towards life. By opening up to the truth of impermanence, you loosen the grip of ‘it must stay this way’ and in its absence, you make space for genuine peace and wellbeing.”
― David Oromith (Johnson)

“We are not the wave that fades, but the ocean that remains.”
― Dirk Hessel, Beautiful Human!: Discovering the Essence of Life

“When faced with daily irritations, our reflex is to think that we can make it right: this is all fixable, teeth are brushable, we can feel whole.

Maybe we also think that someday we will have gained perfect maturity from the lessons of our lives. We expect to be wise old sages like Yoda, not realizing that maturity is just another aspect of decay. Subconsciously we are lured by the expectation that we will reach a stage where we don't have to fix anything ever again. One day we will reach "happily ever after." We are convinced of the notion of "resolution." It's as if everything that we've experienced up until now, our whole lives to this moment, was a dress rehearsal. We believe our grand performance is yet to come, so we do not live for today.

For most people this endless managing, rearranging, upgrading is the definition of "living." In reality, we are waiting for life to start. When prodded, most of us admit that we are working toward some future moment of perfection—retirement in a log cabin in Kennebunkport or in a hut in Costa Rica. Or maybe we dream of living out our later years in the idealized forest landscape of a Chinese painting, serenely meditating in a teahouse overlooking a waterfall and koi pond.”
― Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, What Makes You Not a Buddhist

“We must find our dream, and then the path becomes easy, but no dream is everlasting. One replaces another, and we mustn’t cling to any.”
― Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“The samovar has been on the boil since before eight, but.. gone out... like everything else in the world. Even the sun, it's they say, will go out eventually. However, if necessary, I'll start it going again.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“Was I more like my father than I thought? No. The beauty of the ephemeral was in its impermanence; I couldn't have let myself feel for Blake had I not known there would be an end. And I could admit it now: I did feel for him. There was safety here, at the end of our short story, and it made me bold.”
― Heidi Heilig, The Girl from Everywhere

“You can always go back and take pictures, and buy as many souvenirs as you want. But the thoughts that come to you while you travel will not come back. When you go back, the feelings and sensations you have will no longer be the ones you had before.”
― Jang Eun-Jin, No One Writes Back

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
― Chief Crowfoot

“a photographer flashes picture after picture and everyone who comes up and stands with us smiles because they know that the photos mean even after they leave they'll still be here”
― Henry Hoke, Open Throat

“(On perspective and mortality) I realized: I have forever after to know what comes next. Let us say I have death in the bag already—we all do, it’s our absolute and only guarantee. But this tiny blur of time where I get to be conscious, with my particular collection of memories, is beyond precious.”
― Alyssa Skyes, Two Seconds of Eternity: An Experience in Another Dimension

“What we seek dissolves the instant we think we’ve found it.”
― Monika Ajay Kaul

“We are not here as settlers, but rather as observers and sojourners. In our eyes, everything looks permanent, as though they would last forever, but they will last as long as we are still around, until we are not.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Sips And Little Portions

“Face mortality with courage and grace… build your grief capacity as a pathway to live more fully, love more deeply, and honor the impermanence of life.”
― Ken Breniman, Subversive Acts of Humanity : A Survival Guide for Choosing Evolution over Self-Destruction

“Grief is the shadow side of love.”
― Ken Breniman, Subversive Acts of Humanity : A Survival Guide for Choosing Evolution over Self-Destruction

“Grief is the price we pay for love, but it is also a gift.”
― Ken Breniman, Subversive Acts of Humanity : A Survival Guide for Choosing Evolution over Self-Destruction

“We could be as gentle as October!
Letting what must change, change,
without pleading for permanence.
Even in our fading,
there could be colour,
and an ineffable acceptance of passing.”
― Monika Ajay Kaul

“Everything beautiful fails—that’s what makes it worth looking at.”
― Summer Rivera, Anatomy of Faith

“It reminds us that while we have a significant impact, the world was here before us and will continue after we are gone. Our presence is temporary... Yet confronting impermanence can deepen appreciation for the present. Knowing life is finite encourages us to live with intention”
― Ajmal, from the book "Borders of the Inner World"

“The Cosmos brooks no stasis. What fails to flourish must wither, as summer is surrendered to autumn’s golden decay.”
— from my upcoming book, on change, renewal, and the quiet laws of creation”
― Igor Arien

“Good things fade because we’re not in heaven.
Bad times pass because we’re not in hell.
On earth, all things rise and fall.”
― Abdullah Ali

“You know there's a finite number of atoms, subatomic particles.' He turned his head towards me, knowing it was a language I wouldn't understand. 'Everything transforms into something else, so maybe, someday, it come back.”
― Scott Pearce, The Rider on the Bridge

“Segalanya telah terlambat dan ia tetap bukan milik siapa-siapa. Alat-alat kosmetik yang paling muthakir dan makanan yang paling bergizipun tidak lagi banyak dapat membantunya. Pada waktu itulah Nuning baru menyadari sepenuhnya bahwa segalanya hanyalah sementara, termasuk kecantikan yang dimilikinya. Kesementaraan itulah yang melemparkan manusia ke puncak atau membenamkannya ke dasar yang paling dalam. Kesementaraan itulah yang membuat manusia saling berkejaran dengan waktu. Ketinggalan mungkin akan mempertemukan manusia pada kehancuran, di samping akan menghadapkannya pada berbagai alternatif yang lebih mengerikan.”
― Sori Siregar, Wanita Itu Adalah Ibu

“When spring comes, the city’s inhabitants, by the hundreds of thousands, go out on Sundays with leather cases over their shoulders. And they photograph one another. They come back as happy as hunters with bulging game bags; they spend days waiting, with sweet anxiety, to see the developed pictures (anxiety to which some add the subtle pleasure of alchemistic manipulations in the darkroom, forbidding any intrusion by members of the family, relishing the acid smell that is harsh to the nostrils). It is only when they have the photos before their eyes that they seem to take tangible possession of the day they spent, only then that the mountain stream, the movement of the child with his pail, the glint of the sun on the wife’s legs take on the irrevocability of what has been and can no longer be doubted. Everything else can drown in the unreliable shadow of memory.”
― Italo Calvino, Difficult Loves

“Ebb and Flow by Stewart Stafford

Happiness, briefest harbour in a squall;
Tempests funnel us to splintered docks,
High-seas missions to a last port of call,
Fading feast taste of a haven of stasis.

Weather springs with raging misprision,
All things far beyond fingertip calculation,
If we go off course with Fool's Gold vision,
The reefs of avarice shall starkly claim us.

We set sail or are torn from fragile sanctuary,
All these stays, noted in the strangers' ledger,
The Fate Morgana's captain - marine actuary,
Virtual kin crew with fish and fowl companions.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford