Dogen Zenji Quotes

A man, when he burns, leaves only a handful of ashes. No woman can hold him. The wind must blow him away.

Insignificant mortals, who are as leaves are, and now flourish and grow warm with life, and feed on what the ground gives, but then again fade away and are dead.

Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.

Now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.

Time hurries by, we're here and gone.

Consider The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:-- We are as they; Like them we fade away As doth a leaf.

Life is a bubble in a lake, that glitters for an instant, bursts, and leaves not even a blur on the water; it is the leap of a minnow, which sends a tiny ripple trembling for a few inches.

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow.

Even though in the world you are the most learned scholar of the time, Behold the vanishing of this world and this time!

The seed of mortals broods o'er passing things, and hath nought surer than the smoke-cloud's shadow.

This greatest mortal consolation, which we derive from the transitoriness of all things-from the right of saying, in every conjuncture, "This, too, will pass away.

Time wastes too fast : every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen ; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more -- every thing presses on -- whilst thou are twisting that lock, -- see! it grows grey ; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make!

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.

In life, and in sports, we all know that nothing lasts forever.

Man's wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late.

I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow.

O what is life, if we must hold it thus as wind-blown sparks hold momentary fire?

I am a forgettable leaf on a tree.

Nothing is forever in the Theatre. Whatever it is, it's here, it flares up, burns hot and then its gone.

Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.

We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.