Fleeting Nature of Existence Quotes

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

The years have gone by quickly. Death sits in the seat next to me. We make a lovely couple.

The short bloom of our brief and narrow life flies fast away. While we are calling for flowers and wine and women, old age is upon us.

Let every man in mankind's frailtyConsider his last day; and let nonePresume on his good fortune until he findLife, at his death, a memory without pain.

For this I see, that we, all we that live, Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams.

Alas, Postumus, the fleeting years slip by, nor will piety give any stay to wrinkles and pressing old age and untamable death.

Each life is one short word slowly uttered.

In the middle of life, death comes to take your measurements. The visit is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit is being sewn on the sly.

Life is fleeting. And if you're ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day... make a wish and think of me.

Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away.

Do not vainly lament, but do wonder at the rule of transiency and learn from it the emptiness of human life. Do not cherish to unworthy desire that the changeable might become unchanging.

That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.

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.

But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which never more return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.

With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand... hopeless from the start.

I feel as if I'm in on a pass and am damn lucky to have whatever I have. It could all be taken away in a second.

I wonder if one of the penalties of growing older is that you become more and more conscious that nothing is very permanent.

... life itself is brief, and that is what charges the day with such ridiculous beauty.

The short span of life forbids us to spin out hope to any length. Soon will night be upon you, and the fabled Shades, and the shadowy Plutonian home.

We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.