Francois Fenelon Quotes

Life is evanescent, but left to itself it rarely fails to offer some consolation.

it is the brevity of life which makes it tolerable; its experiences have value because they have an end.

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.

Life is short. It can come and go like a feather in the wind.

The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.

Our lives ... are but a little while, so let them run as sweetly as you can, and give no thought to grief from day to day. For time is not concerned to keep our hopes, but hurries on its business, and is gone.

All glory is fleeting.

In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is--as the light called human life is--at its coming and its going.

You are here for but an instant, and you mustn't take yourself too seriously

Everything comes out of nothingness and goes back into nothingness. Hence there is no need for attachment, because attachment will bring misery. Soon it will be gone. The flower that has blossomed in the morning, by the evening will be gone. Don't get attached; otherwise in the evening there will be misery. Then there will be tears, then you will miss the flower. Enjoy while it is. But remember, it has come out of nothing, and it will go back to nothing. And the same is true about everything, even about people.

All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only beloved who will never pass away.

To feel that life is meaningless unless “I” can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch.

The greatest surprise in life to me is the brevity of life.

Alack our life, so beautiful to see, With how much ease life losest, in a day, What many years with pain and toil amassed!

As leaves on the trees, such is the life of man.

... nothing lasts long. We all come to life and gather allies and build empires and die, all in a single moment - maybe a single pulse of some giant processor somewhere.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washèd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.

All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament.

Life is a process of one goneness after another.