Momentary Quotes

• Beauty is momentary in the mind -- The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing.

  Wallace Stevens

  Life, Beauty, Mind

  Harmonium (1923) "Peter Quince at the Clavier" pt. 4

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

  Horace

  Anger, Passion, Madness

  "Epistles". Book by Horace, Book I, epistle ii, line 62, c. 20 BC.

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Life, Art, Anger

  6 Copy quote

• Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains...

  Diane Ackerman

  Summer, Nature, Memories

  "A Natural History of the Senses". Book by Diane Ackerman, 1990.

  66 Copy quote

  Show source

• Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  War, Sunset, Victory And Defeat

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Collected Works”

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sex is a momentary itch, love never lets you go.

  Kingsley Amis

  Love, Sex, Letting You Go

  Kingsley Amis (2016). “Collected Poems: 1944-1979”, p.68, New York Review of Books

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• My films are the expression of momentary desires. I follow my instincts, but in a disciplined way.

  Roman Polanski

  Expression, Desire, Way

  "The Everything Cryptograms Book". Book by Nikki Katz, 2005.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

  John Keats

  Men, Criticism, Blame

  John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.225, e-artnow

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Witty, Sex, Ridiculous

  Attributed in W. Somerset Maugham, Christmas Holiday (1939)

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

  Robert Frost

  Inspiration, Poetry, Delight

  Collected Poems preface (1939)

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• . . . women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed; there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.

  Judith Martin

  Boys, Female, Lapses

  Judith Martin (1996). “Common courtesy: in which Miss Manners solves the problem that baffled Mr. Jefferson”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.

  George Eliot

  Fall, Dark, Men

  George Eliot (2006). “Silas Marner: Literary Touchstone Edition”, p.47, Prestwick House Inc

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• …Perhaps this momentary life of ours is only the light that divides our infinite origin from our infinite end.

  Juan Ramon Jimenez

  Light, Infinite, Ends

  22 Copy quote

• Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal. For, what is grievous, dompting, grim, about our lives is that we are shut up within ourselves, with an itch to get outside ourselves. And to be stolen away from ourselves by Art is a momentary relaxation from that itching, a minute's profound, and as it were secret, enfranchisement.

  John Galsworthy

  Art, Real, Men

  John Galsworthy (2008). “The Complete Essays of John Galsworthy: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.338, ReadHowYouWant.com

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The creative element in the mind of man . . . emerges in as mysterious a fashion as those elementary particles which leap into momentary existence in great cyclotrons, only to vanish again like infinitesimal ghosts.

  Loren Eiseley

  Fashion, Men, Creative

  6 Copy quote

• I take it that a monograph of this sort belongs to the ephemera literature of science. The studied care which is warranted in the treatment of the more slowly moving branches of science would be out of place here. Rather with the pen of a journalist we must attempt to record a momentary phase of current thought, which may at any instant change with kaleidoscopic abruptness.

  Gilbert N. Lewis

  Moving, Science, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• All men, in the abstract, are just and good; what hinders them, in the particular, is, the momentary predominance of the finite and individual over the general truth. The condition of our incarnation in a private self, seems to be, a perpetual tendency to prefer the private law, to obey the private impulse, to the exclusion of the law of the universal being.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Self, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.90, Рипол Классик

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's just never the same. At least for me.It's probably because it's just who I am, I never know what that [truth] is. It's so momentary to go, "Oh, yeah, that's true." That's a fundamental starting point for me - to figure out what's true from moment to moment to moment.

  Paul Beatty

  Who I Am, Fundamentals, Moments

  3 Copy quote

• I think what the Church should ideally do, and does appear to do in the context of straight relationships, is to support people in crossing from the easier pleasure of momentary carnal satisfaction, into the more difficult pleasure of love and family and relationship.

  Andrew Solomon

  Thinking, People, Support

  Source: andrewsolomon.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The next album I make might be the most messed up thing ever. It's all momentary for me.

  Ty Segall

  Albums, Might, Next

  Source: pitchfork.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Beginning well is a momentary thing; finishing well is a lifelong thing

  Ravi Zacharias

  Finishing, Lifelong, Wells

  Ravi Zacharias (2005). “I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah: Moving from Romance to Lasting Love”, p.25, Thomas Nelson Inc

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even the handsomest men do not have the same momentary effect on the world as a truly beautiful woman does.

  Jonathan Carroll

  Beauty, Beautiful, Men

  13 Copy quote

• Photography is a response that has to do with the momentary recognition of things. Suddenly you're alive. A minute later there was nothing there. I just watched it evaporate. You look one moment and there's everything, next moment it's gone. Photography is very philosophical.

  Joel Meyerowitz

  Photography, Philosophical, Looks

  3 Copy quote

• Save for minor ailments and accident, my battalion is practically immune from sickness; colds come and go as a matter of course, sprains and cuts claim momentary attention, but otherwise the health of the battalion is perfect.

  Patrick MacGill

  Cutting, Perfect, Attention

  MacGill, Patrick (2017). “The Amateur Army”, p.15, Read Books Ltd

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than the revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased.

  C. L. R. James

  Revenge, Passion, Poverty

  58 Copy quote