Quotes about transience

I stare at this ceaseless, rushing crowd and imagine a time a hundred years from now. In a hundred years everybody here - me included - will have disappeared from the face of the earth and turned into ashes or dust. A weird thought, but everything in front of me starts to seem unreal, like a gust of wind could blow it all away

Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through, is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology ... But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone. And for me, what happened in the woods that day is one of these.

"Listen, every object's in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil-they're all fluid and in transition. They don't stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box."

I thought—To lose all this forever?

And I hallucinated Aenea’s voice saying To lose all this forever is the essence of being human, my love.

Life is brutal that way...the loss of irrecoverable moments amid trivia and distraction.

I'm undecided about the time we live in. This ongoing passage to oblivion. The disappearance of things you took for granted. Then there's the renaissance of things you never knew of, or presumed you'd never see again.

Finally, she mused that human existence is as brief as the life of autumn grass, so what was there to fear from taking chances with your life?

Be the day short or be the day long, at last it weareth to evening song.

The legends of our age die one by one, like autumn leaves; and when they are gone, will we be lesser for their absence?

It seems cheap.

With his death imminent, the worlds feel emptier. Almost as cavernous as they did when Cassius fell. One by one, the titans of my youth disappear, and freed from their shadow, I do not feel liberated. I feel bereft.

Nothing is permanent. No one escapes.

"The bill comes at the end," I whisper.

'...Did the stars visit him upon me in caprice? To teach me that a lifetime can be vast as a hundred years or sudden as a few breaths? Enjoy this one you have left. It all passes so fast. In the time it takes to draw a breath.' (p116)

Again, be patient. And have courage. Remember, everything passes, even the most unspeakable horrors.

“Then all this,” Chromis said, gesturing at the vista before them, “everything we’ve lived for and made, everything we’ve dreamed into existence—you firmly believe it won’t always be here?”

“It’d be egocentric to think otherwise. Almost every sentient being who ever lived belonged to a society that doesn’t exist any more. Why should we be any different?”

“But our deeds will remain.”

“If we’re lucky. There’s every chance they won’t survive either.”

“That’s so bleak, Rudd.”

“Bracing, I prefer to think.”

“But if nothing we do here has any guarantee of lasting, if even the best gestures have only a slim chance of outliving us—is there any reason not to just give up?”

“Every reason in the world,” Rudd said. “We’re here and we’re alive. It’s a beautiful evening, on the last perfect day of summer.” He turned and nodded at the waiting cauls. “Now let’s go down there and make the most of it, while it lasts.”