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Ephemerality

that which only exists briefly
(Redirected from Ephemeral)

Ephemeral things (from Greek εφήμερος – ephemeros, literally "lasting only one day"are transitory, existing only briefly. Typically the term is used to describe objects found in nature, although it can describe a wide range of things. Ephemeral can also be used as an adjective to refer to a fast-deteriorating importance or temporary nature of an object to a person.

Marcus Aurelius:All is ephemeral, - fame and the famous as well.
Farid ud-Din Attar:...You can never see your own face...
Clive Barker:As for theatre, there's ups and downs to everything. Theatre is ephemeral. But that is part of its charm because you can always say the production was better than it was.
Hilaire Belloc:When the ephemeral vision's lure is past All, all, must face their Passion at the last. So touch my dying lip: so bridge that deep: So pledge my waking from the gift of sleep.


Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
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  • A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; but whichever it is, he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him. He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.
  • Let you sleeping head, my love,
    Human on my faithless arm;
    Time and fever burns away
    Individual beauty from
    Thoughtful children and the grave
    Proves the child ephemeral;
    But in my arms till break of day
    Let the living creature lie:
    Mortal, guilty, but to me
    The entirely beautiful.

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C

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Pablo Casals:...to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.
  • In the network society, the space of flows dissolves time by disordering the sequence of events and making them simultaneous in the communication networks, thus installing society in structural ephemerality: being cancels becoming.
  • Dalitz plots led to the discovery of some 100 ephemeral particles, many living no longer than the time taken by a light beam to cross an atomic nucleus.

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Christian Dior:A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture, designed to enhance the proportions of the female body.

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Andy Goldsworthy:Ephemeral work made outside, for and about a day, lies at the core of my art and its making must be kept private.
  • When we look back at our experience, we can see so clearly its ephemeral, dreamlike nature. Yet when we look ahead, when we look to the future, somehow (and this is the great enchantment) we get dazzled by all the possibilities that are there waiting for us as if the next event in our lives, the next situation, the next project, the next relationship, the next meal, even on meditation the next breath … we live our lives in anticipation of the next hit of experience as if the one that's coming will finally do it for us. What's so strange is that nothing up 'til now has brought that sense of real completion or fulfillment. So why are we so seduced into thinking that the next one will? This is a very strange phenomena.

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Jimi Hendrix:And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually.

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Víctor Jara:Such songs belong to a group of sometimes ephemeral phenomena which might be called "subjective folklore".

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Kim Ki-duk:An artist's creative energy is ephemeral as a flower. It blooms and soon dies. No artist is great forever. Personally, I think I reached my peak in 2004 when I shot 'Samaria' and '3-Iron'.

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Judith Light:Yet I've discovered that how I look is not a function of anything as ephemeral as my hair.
  • To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.

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Mike Mason:The simplest gesture, the ephemeral movement, the commonest object all become precious beyond words when touched, noticed, lived by one's own dear child
  • The simplest gesture, the ephemeral movement, the commonest object all become precious beyond words when touched, noticed, lived by one's own dear child.

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Friedrich Nietzsche:Miserable, ephemeral race, children of hazard and hardship, why do you force me to say what it would be much more fruitful for you not to hear?

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  • We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused / in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not degenerate into pop-gunnery/by which term we may designate the character of the greater portion of the newspaper press/their sole legitimate object being the discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.

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Sei Shōnagon:It is a piece of writing replete with those typical Japanese wistful and melancholic evocations of ephemerality. It was written a thousand years ago almost exactly to the year the film was made, and it was written by a woman.
 
Soil:It does not have the same unchanging character as a mountain or a river; it is a recent and ephemeral product.

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Nikola Tesla:The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole.
  • The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole.

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Nancy S.M. Waldman:the river valley is a magic box. To those who would observe, the pattern of colour and movement paint a picture that is a masterwork resulting from millions of years of nature's efforts, yet dynamic and ephemeral.
 
Walt Whitman:...Holding Humanity as in thy open hand, as some ephemeral toy,...
  • Ephemeral art is everywhere. Often it isn’t thought of as art with a capital “A.” By its nature, it can’t be bought, sold, collected, moved about easily, and it is impermanent. However, with photography and video we now can and do capture and make relatively permanent even the ephemeral. In many respects, this changes the artforms greatly.
    • Nancy S.M. Waldman, in "Art of the Now – an essay of ephemeral art".
  • I am not interested in the ephemeral-such subjects as the adulteries of dentists. I am interested in those things that repeat and repeat and repeat in the lives of the millions.

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Anonymous

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...Such ephemeral markings are also known as “trace fossils” or “ichnofossils”...
  • On occasion, we find within w:Sedimentary rocksedimentary rock “ephemeral markings” - these are imprints/impressions that are made in mud and or sand that is rapidly hardened into stone with the impressions still in tact. Such ephemeral markings are also known as “trace fossils” or “ichnofossils”. These can include things like bird tracks or wave ripples or other types of evidence of movement that would normally be left within a soft surface. This usually occurs through some form of flood catastrophe (usually the laying down of a lot of water rapidly)
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