Permanence Quotes

• We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.

  Zhuangzi

  Fall, Winter, Autumn

  Zhuangzi (1974). “Chuang tsu: Inner chapters”, Vintage Books USA

  80 Copy quote

  Show source

• Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

  Henri Matisse

  Funny, Art, Expression

  "The Christian Science Monitor", quoted in the review of "The Drawings of Henri Matisse" exhibit at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art by Theodore F. Wolff, March 25, 1985.

  66 Copy quote

  Show source

• Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacle s, discouragement s, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Inspirational, Positive, Strength

  31 Copy quote

• Everything is in a process of change, nothing endures; we do not seek permanence.

  Masatoshi Naito

  Change, Growth, Process

  13 Copy quote

• We long for permanence but everything in the known universe is transient. That's a fact but one we fight.

  Sharon Salzberg

  Fighting, Long, Meditation

  Sharon Salzberg (2010). “Real Happiness - Enhanced Ebook Edition: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program”, p.82, Workman Publishing

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

  Nhat Hanh

  Suffering, Impermanence, Permanent

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2015). “The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation”, p.132, Harmony

  109 Copy quote

  Show source

• Marriage is a core institution of societies throughout the world and throughout history. Its something that has provided permanence and stability for our very social structure.

  David Vitter

  Marriage, World, Social

  25 Copy quote

• We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves.

  Alan Watts

  Nature, War, Desire

  12 Copy quote

• Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.

  George Santayana

  Time, Nature, Science

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whether or not we have hope depends on two dimensions of our explanatory style; pervasiveness and permanence.

  Martin Seligman

  Hope, Two, Style

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.89, Vintage

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• This growth in the number, speed of formation, permanence, delicacy and complexity of associations possible for an animal reaches its acme in the case of man.

  Edward Thorndike

  Animal, Men, Numbers

  10 Copy quote

• Writing, printing, and the Internet give a false sense of security about the permanence of culture.

  Jane Jacobs

  Writing, Giving, Culture

  Jane Jacobs (2007). “Dark Age Ahead”, p.5, Vintage

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life.

  Christopher Lasch

  Loyalty, Different, Logic

  18 Copy quote

• Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Change, Death, Fear

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Susan Sutton Smith, Ralph H. Orth (1990). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.306, University of Missouri Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The trash and litter of nature disappears into the ground with the passing of each year, but man's litter has more permanence.

  John Steinbeck

  Nature, Men, Years

  John Steinbeck (1995). “The Pastures of Heaven”, p.42, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The intellectual evolution of the race consists in an increase in the number, delicacy, complexity, permanence and speed of formation of such associations.

  Edward Thorndike

  Race, Numbers, Intellectual

  Edward Lee Thorndike (1924). “The Evolution of the Human Intellect”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The total disorder in the universe, as measured by the quantity that physicists call entropy, increases steadily over time. Also, the total order in the universe, as measured by the complexity and permanence of organized structures, also increases steadily over time.

  Freeman Dyson

  Order, Structure, Increase

  4 Copy quote

• She touched the edge of its voluptuous field, knowing it would be lovely beyond dreams simply to submit to it; that not gravity's pull, laws of ballistics, feral ravening, promised more delight. She tested it, shivering: I am meant to remember. Each clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity, its fine chances for permanence. But then she wondered if the gemlike "clues" were only some kind of compensation. To make up for her having lost the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Dream, Night, Law

  Thomas Pynchon (2012). “The Crying of Lot 49”, p.55, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everything had shattered. The fact that it was all still there — the walls and the chairs and the children’s pictures on the walls — meant nothing. Every atom of it had been blasted apart and reconstituted in an instant, and its appearance of permanence and solidity was laughable; it would dissolve at a touch, for everything was suddenly tissue-thin and friable.

  J. K. Rowling

  Children, Wall, Atoms

  12 Copy quote

• Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say... how we enjoy ourselves... Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death.

  Victoria Finlay

  Space, Trying, Next

  Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.343, Ballantine Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Leaving the people and places you love, is a reminder of the impermanence of this life. And the permanence of the next.

  Yasmin Mogahed

  Love Is, People, Leaving

  20 Copy quote

• I see nothing but Becoming. Be not deceived! It is the fault of your limited outlook and not the fault of the essence of things if you believe that you see firm land anywhere in the ocean of Becoming and Passing. You need names for things, just as if they had a rigid permanence, but the very river in which you bathe a second time is no longer the same one which you entered before

  Heraclitus

  Believe, Ocean, Land

  13 Copy quote

• If shadows were caused by the interplay between light and Life, a child's was still forming. An adult's was inextricably bound to his body, but a child had a tenuous relationship to his own permanence, and thus, his own shadow.

  Anne Ursu

  Children, Light, Shadow

  Anne Ursu, Eric Fortune (2007). “The Shadow Thieves”, p.167, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life in Anaheim, California, was a commercial for itself, endlessly replayed. Nothing changed; it just spread out farther and farther in the form of neon ooze. What there was always more of had been congealed into permanence long ago, as if the automatic factory that cranked out these objects had jammed in the on position.

  Philip K. Dick

  Long Ago, California, Neon

  Philip K. Dick (2011). “A Scanner Darkly”, p.29, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Bible is the best of books, and I wish it were in the hands of every one. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions. A free government can not exist without religion and morals, and there cannot be morals without religion. Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best school book in the world. I would that all our people were brought up under the influence of that holy book.

  Zachary Taylor

  Education, Book, School

  140 Copy quote