Absence Quotes - Page 16

• The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.

  Simone Weil

  Evil, Boredom, Soul

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.226, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn't freedom. It's not control that's lacking when one feels 'free', but the objectionable control of force.

  B. F. Skinner

  Force, Restraint, Feels

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• Silence has a myriad of meanings. In the theater, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning.

  Sanford Meisner

  Silence, Theater, Silence Is

  Sanford Meisner, Dennis Longwell (2012). “Sanford Meisner on Acting”, p.29, Vintage

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• Intimate or drastic elements in the work of others are untouchable and should not be commented upon even in their absence. Private conflicts, quarrels, sentiments, animosities are unavoidable in any human group. It is our duty towards creation to keep these in check in so far as they might deform and wreck the work process.

  Jerzy Grotowski

  War, Groups, Elements

  Jerzy Grotowski (2012). “Towards a Poor Theatre”, p.259, Routledge

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• The absence of romance from my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

  Thucydides

  Winning, Past, Romance

  History of the Peloponnesian War bk. 1, ch. 1

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• Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Firsts, Talent, Virtue

  "Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside".

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• If there is an ‘overabundance’ of an idea in the absence of direct governmental action - which there well might be when compared with some ideal state of public debate - then action disfavoring that idea might ‘un-skew,’ rather than skew, public discourse.

  Elena Kagan

  Ideas, Might, Action

  "Kagan Argued for Government 'Redistribution of Speech'" by Matt Cover, www.cnsnews.com. May 11, 2010.

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• As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.

  John Paul Stevens

  Government, Expression, Ideas

  "Excerpts From Ruling on Internet: 'Statute Abridges the Freedom of Speech'". www.nytimes.com. June 27, 1997.

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• Peace comes from the absence of fear, from a consciousness of trust, from a deep, underlying faith in the absolute goodness and mercy, the final integrity of the universe in which we live, and of every cause to which we give our thought, our time and our attention.

  Ernest Holmes

  Integrity, Giving, Causes

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• I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and funisheth a fairfield to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.

  Samuel Rutherford

  Flower, Humility, Exercise

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p.277, 1895.

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• Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Law, Void, Belief

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• The poetic impulse is distinct from ideas about things or feelings about things, though it may use these. It's more like a desire to separate a piece of one's experience & set it up on its own, an isolated object never to trouble you again, at least not for a bit. In the absence of this impulse nothing stirs.

  Philip Larkin

  Ideas, Feelings, Desire

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• And so, when I began to read the proffered pages, I at one moment lost the train of thought in the text and drowned it in my own feelings. In these seconds of absence and self-oblivion, centuries passed with every read but uncomprehended and unabsorbed line, and when, after a few moments, I came to and re-established contact with the text, I knew that the reader who returns from the open seas of his feelings is no longer the same reader who embarked on that sea only a short while ago.

  Milorad Pavić

  Self, Sea, Train Of Thought

  "Dictionary of the Khazars". Book by Milorad Pavić, 1984.

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• The greatest gift for an individual or a nation... was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Mind, Individual, Nations

  Aung San Suu Kyi (1991). “Freedom from fear: and other writings”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• There is an absence of democratic accountability and control in every sphere of government and the state. To address this debilitating legacy requires determined action and a deep commitment to transforming our society from a crisis ridden present into something all South Africans can be truly proud of.

  Nelson Mandela

  Commitment, Government, Accountability

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• The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever.

  Federico Garcia Lorca

  Running, Wall, Believe

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• It is partly the absence of recorded history which sends women now to the lives of women past for the detailed documentation of their daily lives.

  Dale Spender

  Women, Past, Documentation

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• Every family has a story that it tells itself, that it passes on to the children and grandchildren. The story grows over the years, mutates, some parts are sharpened, others dropped, and there is often debate about what really happened. But even with these different sides of the same story, there is still agreement that this is the family story. And in the absence of other narratives, it becomes the flagpole that the family hangs its identity from.

  A.M. Homes

  Family, Children, Agreement

  A.M. Homes (2012). “The Mistress's Daughter: A Memoir”, p.93, Granta Books

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• When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the 'nay' in your own mind, nor do you withhold the 'ay. And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

  Khalil Gibran

  Friendship, Heart, Grieving

  Khalil Gibran, “Friendship IXX”

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• Love is the creative refinement of sex energy. And so, when love reaches perfection, the absence of sex automatically follows. A life of love, an abstinence from physical pleasures is called brahmacharya, and anyone who wishes to be free from sex must develop his capacity to love. Freedom from sex cannot be achieved through supersession. Liberation from sex is only possible through love.

  Rajneesh

  Sex, Love Is, Capacity To Love

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• In the absence of a great dream pettiness prevails. Shred visions foster risk taking, courage and innovation. Keeping the end in mind creates the confidence to make decisions even in moments of crisis.

  Peter Senge

  Dream, Decision, Innovation

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• In four ways ... should one who flatters be understood as a foe in the guise of a friend: He approves of his friend's evil deeds, he disapproves his friend's good deeds, he praises him in his presence, he speaks ill of him in his absence.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Evil, Four

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• Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. Develop the mind of equilibrium. You will always be getting praise and blame, but do not let either affect the poise of the mind: follow the calmness, the absence of pride.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Buddhism, Pride

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• Peace is the absence of war, but beyond that peace is a commodity unlike any other. Peace is security. Peace is a mindset. Peace is a way of living. Peace is the capacity to transcend past hurts - to break cycles of violence and forge new pathways that say, I would like to make sure we live as a community where there is justice, security, and development for all members. At the end of the day, peace is an investment; it is something you create by investing in a way of life and monitoring where your resources go.

  Noeleen Heyzer

  Hurt, Peace, War

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• Wherefore also these Kinds [elements] occupied different places even before the universe was organised and generated out of them. Before that time, in truth, all these were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their known nature, were yet disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.

  Plato

  Truth, Mean, Science

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