165 Quotes About Impermanence

To know yourself you must know the transience of your self.

Actually, everything is in-between.

Everything changes; nothing is permanent.

The bells of the Gion monastery in India echo with the warning that all things are impermanent. The blossoms of the sala trees teach us through their hues that what flourishes must fade. The proud do not prevail for long but vanish like a spring night’s dream. In time the mighty, too, succumb: all are dust before the wind.

You are as the yellow leaf.The messengers of death are at hand.You are to travel far away.What will you take with you?You are the lampTo lighten the way.Then hurry, hurry.When your light shinesWithout impurity or desireYou will come into the boundless country.Your life is falling away.Death is at hand.Where will you rest on the way?What have you taken with you?You are the lampTo lighten the way.Then hurry, hurry.When your light shines purelyYou will not be bornAnd you will not die.

Your body is like a dew-drop on the morning grass, your life is as brief as a flash of lightning. Momentary and vain, it is lost in a moment. (From 'Fukan zazengi')

You point to something as having quality and the quality seems to go away.

I have no news of my coming or passing away--the whole thing happened quicker than a breath;ask no questions of the moth.

Of what is the body made? It is made of emptiness and rhythm. At the ultimate heart of the body, at the heart of the world, there is no solidity... there is only the dance.