Abyss Quotes - Page 10

• Boredom rests upon the nothingness that winds its way through existence; its giddiness, like that which comes from gazing down into an infinite abyss, is infinite.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Blessing, Wind, Boredom

  Soren Kierkegaard (2004). “Either/Or: A Fragment of Life”, p.195, Penguin UK

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone. Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

  Emile Durkheim

  Feelings, Needs, Variables

  John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.247, Simon and Schuster

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• What will it cost you, oh Mary, to hear our prayer? What will it cost you to save us? Has not Jesus placed in your hands all the treasures of His grace and mercy? You sit crowned Queen at the right hand of your son: your dominion reaches as far as the heavens and to you are subject the earth and all creatures dwelling thereon. Your dominion reaches even down into the abyss of hell, and you alone, oh Mary, save us from the hands of Satan.

  Pope Pius X

  Jesus, Queens, Prayer

  64 Copy quote

• We live in our language like blind men walking on the edge of an abyss. This language is laden with future catastrophes. The day will come when it will turn against those who speak it.

  Gershom Scholem

  Men, Language, Speak

  11 Copy quote

• In sex, man is driven into the very abyss which he flees. He makes a voyage to non-being and back.

  Camille Paglia

  Sex, Men, Voyages

  Camille Paglia (2018). “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism”, p.49, Canongate Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done.

  Ian Kershaw

  Men, Damn You, Historical

  46 Copy quote

• But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone.

  John F. Kennedy

  Dark, Men, Presidential

  Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 25 September 1961

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness is the source in which all objects arise and subside. As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Awareness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifest potential, the silent abyss beyond all knowing.

  Adyashanti

  Knowing, Meditation, Listening

  39 Copy quote

• I think of life as an inn where I have to stay until the abyss coach arrives. I don't know where it will take me, for I know nothing.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Inns, Take Me

  "A Factless Autobiography". Book by Richard Zenith Edition, p. 40, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Early on a difficult climb, especially a solo climb, you’re hyper-aware of the abyss pulling at your back, constantly feeling its call, its immense hunger. To resist takes tremendous conscious effort, you don’t dare let your guard down for an instant. The void puts you on edge, makes your movements tentative and clumsy. But as the climb continues, you grow accustomed to the exposure, you get used to rubbing shoulders with doom, you come to believe in the reliability of your hands and feet and head. You learn to trust your self-control.

  Jon Krakauer

  Believe, Self, Hands

  FaceBook post by Jon Krakauer from Feb 11, 2012

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals being as a whole.

  Martin Heidegger

  Men, Fog, Profound

  110 Copy quote

• Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

  Emile Durkheim

  Feelings, Capacity, Force

  Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.208, Routledge

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small!

  James Blish

  Retrospect, Steps, Irrevocable

  "A Case of Conscience". Book by James Blish, Chapter 13 (p. 158), 1958.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vengeful as nature herself, she loves her children only in order to devour them better and if she herself rips her own veils of self-deceit, Mother perceives in herself untold abysses of cruelty as subtle as it is refined.

  Angela Carter

  Mother, Children, Rip

  4 Copy quote

• Everybody's got something to tell you. And most people have told me to do the obvious thing as far as my career goes. Which would have sent me tottering into the abyss.

  Robert Plant

  Careers, Obvious Things, People

  "The Survivors: Robert Plant". Interview with Chris Heath, www.gq.com. November 7, 2011.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I want to write something that makes it easy for young people to look right into the abyss.

  Dave Mustaine

  Writing, People, Looks

  33 Copy quote

• Acquired characteristics are inherited in technology and culture. Lamarckian evolution is rapid and accumulative. It explains the cardinal difference between our past, purely biological mode of change, and our current, maddening acceleration toward something new and liberating- or toward the abyss.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Past, Technology, Differences

  6 Copy quote

• It is dangerous it seems to me for a civilization when there is a complete abyss betewen people in general and the artists. Or is it always so? The poets who are most ardently on the people's side write in such a way that the people cannot see rhyme nor reason to their work.

  May Sarton

  Writing, Artist, Civilization

  7 Copy quote

• But a mature humanity could get into a place where we no longer required these metaphysical spankings from messiahs and flying saucers that come along every thousand years or so to mess up the mess that has been created and try and send people off on another tack. And the way to do this is to look at the abysses that confront man as species and individuals and try to unify them. And I think that psilocybin offers a way out because it allows a dialogue with the over-mind. You won't read about it in "Scientific American" or anywhere else. You will carry it out.

  Terence McKenna

  Men, Thinking, Years

  9 Copy quote

• Within minutes my 115-mile walk through the desert hills becomes a thing apart, a disjunct reality on the far side of a bottomless abyss, immediately beyond physical recollection.But it's all still there in my heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days to come, like a treasure found and then, voluntarily, surrendered. Returned to the mountains with my blessing. It leaves a golden glowing on the mind.

  Edward Abbey

  Pain, Heart, Blessing

  10 Copy quote

• The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Infidelity, Depth, Treasure

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.109

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• According to the faith and mercy of his Christian enemies, [Chosroes] sunk without hope into a still deeper abyss [Hell]; and it will not be denied, that tyrants of every age and sect are the best entitled to such infernal abodes.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, Tyrants, Enemy

  7 Copy quote

• If you've just stared into the abyss, quickly forget it: the lessons of history can only hold you back.

  Seth Klarman

  Lessons, Forget, Ifs

  "The 20 Forgotten Lessons Of 2008" by Christopher Pavese, www.businessinsider.com. April 28, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The gaps in power, the gaps in wealth, the gaps in ideology which hold the nations apart also make up the abyss into which mankind can fall to annihilation.

  Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth

  Fall, Gaps, Wealth

  17 Copy quote

• Ambition is a devouring fire, who can poise it? It is a wind, who can fathom it? It is an abyss, who is able to recount the sources and issues thereof?

  Nicolas Caussin

  Ambition, Fire, Wind

  4 Copy quote