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Impermanence

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Impermanence, also known as the philosophical problem of change, is a philosophical concept that is addressed in a variety of religions and philosophies.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

B

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  • Knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma is also subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away and cessation.

C

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  • Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse.
    • Everything passes, everything perishes, everything palls.
    • Charles Cahier, Quelques six milles proverbes (1856), p. 97

G

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  • Ich bedauere die Menschen, welche von der Vergänglichkeit der Dinge viel Wesens machen und sich in Betrachtung irdischer Nichtigkeit verlieren. Sind wir ja eben deßhalb da, um das Vergängliche unvergänglich zu machen; das kann ja nur dadurch geschehen, wenn man beides zu schätzen weiß.
    • I’m sorry for people who make a great to-do about the transitory nature of things and get lost in meditations of earthly nothingness. Surely we are here precisely so as to turn what passes into something that endures; but this is possible only if you can appreciate both.
  • The support of the world is a myth, know this my friend
    Nanak says, it isn’t stable, no more than a wall of sand
    Ram has gone, Ravan has gone, they of the great lineages
    Nanak says nothing endures, the world is but a dream
    Think of the calamities that may befall
    Nothing on this path is durable, says Nanak
    Whatever has sprouted will end, today or tomorrow
    Nanak sing the praises of Hari, leave aside the webs of the world
    • Sri Guru Granth Sahib [p. 1429, 49-52]: quoted from Arun Shourie, Preparing: For Death. Penguin Random House India Private Limited, 2020. ISBN 935305978X, 9789353059781

J

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P

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  • Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists then in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor to think well; this is the principle of morality.
  • Blaise Pascal, Pensées, #347, W. F. Trotter, trans. (New York: 1958)

R

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  • It is wiser to contemplate the law of impermanence than to try to repeal it.

S

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T

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  • In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubble-organism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and that bubble is me.
    • Leo Tolstoy, Levin, Anna Karenina, C. Garnett, trans. (New York: 2003), Part 8, Chapter 9, p. 729

V

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See also

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Wikipedia
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