We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure.

No reliance can be placed on the friendship of kings, nor vain hope put in the melodious voice of boys; for that passes away like a vision, and this vanishes like a dream.

Joy and sorrow, beauty and deformity, equally pass away.

We are things of a day. What are we? What are we not? The shadow of a dream is man, no more.

Nothing mortal is enduring, and there is nothing sweet which does not presently end in bitterness.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes-or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two-is gone.

Life is but a day; A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way From a tree's summit.

Our lives ... are but a little while, so let them run as sweetly as you can, and give no thought to grief from day to day. For time is not concerned to keep our hopes, but hurries on its business, and is gone.

The sound of the bell of Gionshoja echoes the impermanence of all things. The hue of the flowers of the teak tree declares that they who flourish must be brought low. Yea, the proud ones are but for a moment, like an evening dream in springtime. The mighty are destroyed at the last; they are but as dust before the wind.

As generations come and go, Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow; Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away, And feeble, of themselves, decay.

Ambition is a meteor-gleam; Fame a restless airy dream; Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, th' tend rest flow'r of spring.

Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away

We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow.

As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

All is ephemeral,-fame and the famous as well.

The entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away.

Nothing lives long Only the earth and the mountains.

Must the poetry of everything vanish Or can my life ever condense it?

Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away.

The idol of yesterday is the demon of today ruthlessly trodden in the dust.