Impermanence Quotes

• It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

  Nhat Hanh

  Suffering, Permanent

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2015). “The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation”, p.132, Harmony

  106 Copy quote

  Show source

• Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.

  Nhat Hanh

  Thanks, Nothing Lasts Forever, Infinite Possibilities

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2000). “Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers”, p.20, Penguin

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Change, Enjoy It While It Lasts, Delight

  "The Razor's Edge". Book by W. Somerset Maugham, 1944.

  162 Copy quote

  Show source

• By contemplating the impermanence of everything in the world, we are forced to recognize that every time we do something could be the last time we do it, and this recognition can invest the things we do with a significance and intensity that would otherwise be absent. We will no longer sleepwalk through our life.

  William Braxton Irvine

  Life, Time, Lasts

  84 Copy quote

• One day some people came to the master and asked: How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness or death? The master held up a glass and said: Someone gave me this glass; It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it - incredibly.

  Ajahn Chah

  Philosophy, Blow, Wind

  200 Copy quote

• Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.

  Pema Chodron

  Struggle, Buddhism, Reality

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.78, Shambhala Publications

  47 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our lives are written in disappearing ink.

  Michelle Cliff

  Life, Ink, Disappear

  Michelle Cliff (1998). “The Store of a Million Items: Stories”, Mariner Books

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life's impermanence, I realized, is what makes every single day so precious. It's what shapes our time here. It's what makes it so important than not a single moment be wasted.

  Wes Moore

  Single Mom, Important, Shapes

  Wes Moore (2010). “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates”, p.133, Spiegel & Grau

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death's pulses, death's heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Death, Letting Go, Dying

  FaceBook post by Sogyal Rinpoche from Jan 19, 2015

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• "All conditioned things are impermanent" - when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Words Of Wisdom, Suffering

  51 Copy quote

• Is not impermanence the very fragrance of our days?

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Fragrance

  11 Copy quote

• Once we see that everything is impermanent and ungraspable and that we create a huge amount of suffering if we are attached to things staying the same, we realize that relaxing and letting go is a wiser way to live. Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Wise, Mean

  62 Copy quote

• Impermanence is not something to be afraid of. It's the evolution, a never-ending horizon.

  Deepak Chopra

  Horizon, Evolution, Volatility

  35 Copy quote

• If we are not empty, we become a block of matter. We cannot breathe, we cannot think. To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out. We cannot be alive if we are not empty. Emptiness is impermanence, it is change. We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible.

  Nhat Hanh

  Buddhist, Block, Mean

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2012). “Awakening of the Heart: Essential Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries”, p.421, Parallax Press

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Death, Acceptance, Clouds

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1594, Library of Alexandria

  47 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Robert Frost

  Grief, Flower, Eden

  Betsy Melvin, Tom Melvin, Robert Frost (2000). “Robert Frost's New England”, p.29, UPNE

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing lasts. Not even a great sorrow.

  Storm Jameson

  Sorrow, Lasts

  Storm Jameson (2011). “Company Parade”, p.223, Bloomsbury Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Judgement, Enlightenment, Three

  Eckhart Tolle (2006). “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose”, p.140, Penguin

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

  Dogen

  World

  28 Copy quote

• Shed no tear - O, shed no tear!
  The flower will bloom another year.
  Weep no more - O, weep no more!
  Young buds sleep in the root's white core.

  John Keats

  Death, Flower, Sleep

  John Keats, Helen Vendler (1990). “Poetry Manuscripts at Harvard”, p.140, Harvard University Press

  80 Copy quote

  Show source

• Leaving the people and places you love, is a reminder of the impermanence of this life. And the permanence of the next.

  Yasmin Mogahed

  Love Is, People, Leaving

  17 Copy quote

• If we start worrying whether our nose is too big or too small, we should think, “What if I had no head? - now that would be a problem!” As long as we have life, we should rejoice. If everything doesn't go exactly as we'd like, we can accept it. If we contemplate impermanence deeply, patience and compassion will arise. We will hold less to the apparent truth of our experience, and the mind will become more flexible. Realizing that one day this body will be buried or burned, we will rejoice in every moment we have rather than make ourselves or others unhappy.

  Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

  Thinking, Compassion, Worry

  36 Copy quote

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

  Myrtle Reed

  Change, Sweet, Essence

  Myrtle Reed (1911). “Master of the Vineyard”, p.28, Library of Alexandria

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• How strange to think that great pain may be impermanent. Something in us all seems to want to carve it in granite, as if only this would do full honor to its terrible significance. But even pain is blessed with impermanence... p 259

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Pain, Blessed, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• It must require an inordinate share of vanity and presumption, too, after enjoying so much that is good and beautiful on earth, to ask the Lord for immortality in addition to it all.

  Heinrich Heine

  Beautiful, Vanity, Earth

  Heinrich Heine (1998). “Journey to Italy”, Marsilio Pub

  56 Copy quote

  Show source