Fleeting Quotes (page 4)
I to my perils. Of cheat and charmer. Came clad in armour. By stars benign. Hope lies to mortals. And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine. The thoughts of others. Were light and fleeting, Of lovers' meeting. Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready. When trouble came.
A. E. Housman
The Persian Version. Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon. The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon. As for the Greek theatrical tradition. Which represents that summer's expedition. Not as a mere reconnaisance in force. By three brigades of foot and one of horse(Their left flank covered by some obsolete. Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet)But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt. To conquer Greece - they treat it with contempt; And only incidentally refute. Major Greek...
Robert Graves
The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions.
Oscar Wilde
You will die, and when you die, you will know a profound lack of it [dignity]. It's never dignified, always brutal. What's dignified about dying? It's never dignified. And in obscurity? Offensive. Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves. And it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial. And subjective. So fuck it.
Dave Eggers
It partook ... of eternity ... there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures.
Virginia Woolf
Even here is something sad and terrible. But the impression is fleeting, and serves only to give a greater acuteness to the enjoyment of the moment. It is like the sadness which you may see in the jester's eyes when a merry company is laughing at his sallies; his lips smile and his jokes are gayer because in that communion of laughter he find himself more intolerably alone.
W. Somerset Maugham
The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You...
Jiddu Krishnamurti
When you've got a thing to say, Say it! Don't take half a day. When your tale's got little in it. Crowd the whole thing in a minute! Life is short--a fleeting vapor--Don't you fill the whole blamed paper. With a tale which, at a pinch, Could be cornered in an inch! Boil her down until she simmers, Polish her until she glimmers.
Joel Chandler Harris