Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it

Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 19.

Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,

And multiply each through endless years,—

One minute of heaven is worth them all.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Paradise and the Peri.

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

The perfume and suppliance of a minute.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.