The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Philosophical literature3 quotes
Everything flows and nothing stays. — Heraclitus · 348 BCThe more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless. — Alan Watts · 1982There is nothing in this World constant, but Inconstancy. — Jonathan Swift · 1711Religious literature3 quotes
The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless. — Alan Watts · 1982Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud.
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. — Nagarjuna · 180Is It fitting to consider what is impermanent, painful, and subject to change as, "This is mine, this am I, this is my self"? — Pali Tipitaka · 100 BCEpic poem1 quote
From the days of old there is no permanence. The sleeping and the dead, how alike they are, they are like a painted death. What is there between the master and the servant when both have fulfilled their doom? — The Epic of Gilgamesh · 1000 BCFantasy1 quote
There's no eternity to the things we can touch. My master used to say, there's nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we finally possess what is real. — Master Li Mu Bai · 2000Fantasy (film)1 quote
There's no eternity to the things we can touch. My master used to say, there's nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we finally possess what is real. — Master Li Mu Bai · 2000Martial arts1 quote
There's no eternity to the things we can touch. My master used to say, there's nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we finally possess what is real. — Master Li Mu Bai · 2000Martial arts (film)1 quote
There's no eternity to the things we can touch. My master used to say, there's nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we finally possess what is real. — Master Li Mu Bai · 2000Political literature1 quote
What's not destroyed by Time's devouring hand?
Where's Troy, and where's the May-pole in the Strand? — James Bramston · 1729Political speech1 quote
Individuals pass like shadows; but the commonwealth is fixed and stable. — Edmund Burke · 1780