Short-Lived Joy Quotes

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

Easter, so longed for, is gone in a day.

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

He whom the gods love dies young, while he is in health, has his senses and his judgments sound.

If you live for pleasure, your ability to enjoy it may pass away and your senses grow dim.

Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.

When I was growing up, I'd study for days trying to get good grades. When I'd get an 'A,' I'd feel elation for about 30 seconds, and then a feeling of emptiness.

With me, satisfaction is always very fleeting with our work. I always get a little restless with it.

I had a stick of CareFree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.

Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever.

I find, in film, we're always making things and having these intense friendships and then losing track of people. When I first start a job, I'm quite nervous, and it takes me a while to find my place, and then it feels like I'm just really loving it and feeling great, and it's all over.

Fame to me certainly is only a temporary and a partial happiness ... fame is not really for a daily diet, that's not what fulfills you. It warms you a bit but the warming is temporary. It's like caviar, you know - it's good to have caviar but not when you have to have it every meal and every day.

What makes women happy? Nothing, for more than ten minutes at a time, so stop worrying.

I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts - spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back - length of life.

I am a romantic, in a literary way, by which I mean the Romantic poets, who thought just because a sensation is fleeting doesn't mean it isn't valuable. If the only criterion of value is whether something lasts, then the whole of human life is a waste of time.

Fame is like getting across the street. It's like, if there's nothing to be across the street for, it's a pointless destination. It's like, "I gotta get across the street, man! I gotta be there! I gotta be there!" Then you get across the street and you're like, "Yeah I'm here!" And then, that's it. Fame doesn't make you particularly happy.

Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain.

Presents can make up for some of the disappointments that life doles out, such as it makes almost no sense and is coming to an end more quickly than ever.

Only the young die good.

To be quite honest, the joyful relief of the publication of my book was short-lived.

Does the world satisfy thee? Then thou hast thy reward & portion in this life; make much of it, for thou shalt know no other joy

When you win the title, you have a great few days, and then it's gone; you're already looking forward to the next season.

The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.

If you could be happy, really happy, for just a while, but you knew from the start that it would end in sadness, and bring pain afterwards, would you choose to have that happiness or would you avoid it?