Permanence Quotes

• We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.

  Zhuangzi

  Fall, Winter, Autumn

  Zhuangzi (1974). “Chuang tsu: Inner chapters”, Vintage Books USA

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• Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

  Henri Matisse

  Funny, Art, Expression

  "The Christian Science Monitor", quoted in the review of "The Drawings of Henri Matisse" exhibit at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art by Theodore F. Wolff, March 25, 1985.

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• Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacle s, discouragement s, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Inspirational, Positive, Strength

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• Everything is in a process of change, nothing endures; we do not seek permanence.

  Masatoshi Naito

  Change, Growth, Process

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• 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, Impermanence, Permanent

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

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• We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves.

  Alan Watts

  Nature, War, Desire

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• Marriage is a core institution of societies throughout the world and throughout history. Its something that has provided permanence and stability for our very social structure.

  David Vitter

  Marriage, World, Social

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• We long for permanence but everything in the known universe is transient. That's a fact but one we fight.

  Sharon Salzberg

  Fighting, Long, Meditation

  Sharon Salzberg (2010). “Real Happiness - Enhanced Ebook Edition: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program”, p.82, Workman Publishing

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• Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.

  George Santayana

  Time, Nature, Science

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana”

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• Whether or not we have hope depends on two dimensions of our explanatory style; pervasiveness and permanence.

  Martin Seligman

  Hope, Two, Style

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.89, Vintage

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• There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Self Reliance, Degrees, Fixture

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.93, Graphic Arts Books

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• Once two persons are tied together freedom is lost and anger arises. When freedom is lost everything becomes ugly. Love means that freedom remains intact: marriage means that freedom has been dropped. You have bargained for permanence, for security, and you have paid for it with freedom.

  Rajneesh

  Marriage, Mean, Two

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• Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

  Jean-Henri Fabre

  Past, Fossils, Instinct

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• I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.

  Neil Gaiman

  Life, Stars, Mean

  "The Sandman: Brief Lives". Comic book series by Neil Gaiman, 1994.

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• So much working, reading, thinking, living to do. A lifetime is not long enough. Nor youth to old age long enough. Immortality and permanence be damned. Sure I want them, but they are nonexistent, and won't matter when I rot underground. All I want to say is: I made the best of a mediocre job. It was a good fight while it lasted. And so life goes.

  Sylvia Plath

  Jobs, Reading, Fighting

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.149, Anchor

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• Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours ... never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness.

  Helen Keller

  Happiness, Kindness, Sadness

  Helen Keller (1920). “Out of the Dark: Essays, Lectures, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision”

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• There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking. But there were also times when they had the illusion not only of safety but of permanence.

  George Orwell

  Safety, Soul, Together

  George Orwell (2001). “The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four”, p.1256, Penguin UK

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• He waved to the city and said good-bye. The city responded by carrying on the way it always did, traffic moving forward uninterrupted, without slowing, as if it were trying to demonstrate its permanence and show him it would still be there if he ever wanted to return. That promise was the best and only thing he could ask of it.

  Matthew J. Kirby

  Moving, Cities, Bye

  Matthew J. Kirby (2012). “The Clockwork Three”, p.372, Scholastic Inc.

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• Everything vanishes, falls apart, doesn't it? Nature is always the same but nothing in her that appears to us lasts. Our art must render the thrill of her permanence, along with her elements, the appearance of all her changes. It must give us a taste of her Eternity.

  Paul Cezanne

  Art, Fall, Giving

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• A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity "on a square yard of space.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Squares, Years, Space

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (1999). “Crime and Punishment”, p.588, Modern Library

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• The ideal of happiness has always taken material form in the house, whether cottage or castle; it stands for permanence and separation from the world.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Taken, Home, House

  Simone de Beauvoir (1953). “The second sex”, Vintage

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• Real love, the Bible says, instinctively desires permanence.

  Timothy Keller

  Marriage, Real, Desire

  Timothy Keller (2011). “The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God”, p.55, Penguin

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• Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

  Jean Paul

  Change, Wisdom, Strong

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• Permanence can only be found in the immortality offered by the click of a camera. Like it or not, life moves on as fleetingly as the photograph is enduring.

  Diane Keaton

  Moving, Cameras, Immortality

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• Avant-gardism is an addiction that can be appeased only by a revolution in permanence.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Addiction, Revolution

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