Quotes about Transience

The world's thy ship and not thy home.

Learn to hold loosely all that is not eternal.

It's no use reminding yourself daily that you are mortal: it will be brought home to you soon enough.

We go on in our pleasures thinking they're going to last forever.

Oh, how swiftly the glory of the world passes away!

W]hen the pleasure is at the sweetest, death is the nearest (461)[.]

God warns us to not get too attached to what's around us because it is temporary. We're told, "Those in frequent contact with the things of the world should make good use of them without becoming attached to them, for this world and all it contains will pass away."9

Though nothing can bring back the hourOf splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower.

It was he who told her of the three inscriptions over the doors of the Milan Cathedral. One, with a carving of roses, says, "All that pleases is but for a moment"; another, with a carving of a cross, says, "All that grieves is but for a moment"; and over the great central door are only the words, "Nothing is important but that which is eternal.

In his diary of the summer he wrote: " 'He makes His ministers a flame of fire.' Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul—short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him. 'Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,The vapors weep their burthen to the ground,Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,And after many a summer dies the swan.

Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful but because they are fleeting.