Abyss Quotes - Page 18

• [Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spiritual, Fall, Buddhism

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• Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.

  Heinrich Heine

  Sphinx, Periods, Riddle

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• It must really be a lonelier journey than anyone could imagine. Cutting through absolute darkness, encountering nothing but the occasional hydrogen atom. Flying blindly into the abyss, believing therein lie the answers to the mysteries of the universe.

  Makoto Shinkai

  Lying, Believe, Cutting

  "Fictional character: Takaki Toono". "5 Centimeters Per Second", www.imdb.com. 2007.

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• The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me.

  Markus Zusak

  Stars, Lying, Fall

  Markus Zusak (2014). “Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger”, p.831, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• There is a pain so utter, it swallows being up; The covers the abyss with a trance So memory can step around, across, upon it.

  Emily Dickinson

  Pain, Memories, Steps

  Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, Alfred Leete Hampson (1929). “Further poems of Emily Dickinson: withheld from publication by her sister Lavinia”

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• The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard

  Terry Goodkind

  Mean, Reality, Thinking

  Terry Goodkind (2010). “Faith of the Fallen”, p.31, Macmillan

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• Only later did I come to understand that to be a mother is to be an illusion. No matter how vigilant, in the end a mother can't protect her child - not from pain, or horror, or the nightmare of violence, from sealed trains moving rapidly in the wrong direction, the depravity of strangers, trapdoors, abysses, fires, cars in the rain, from chance.

  Nicole Krauss

  Mother, Pain, Children

  Nicole Krauss (2011). “Great House: A Novel”, p.270, W. W. Norton & Company

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• [death]...the abyss from where no traveler is permitted to return

  George Washington

  Return, Traveler

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• Musings The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into the night, To plumb abysses dead to human sight; To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled, Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world. [click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby]

  Robert E. Howard

  Kings, Queens, Cheer

  Robert E. Howard (2008). “The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard”, p.158, Del Rey

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• We fell silent again. The thing we had shared was nothing more than a fragment of time that had died longe ago.Even so, a faint glimmer of that warm memory still claimed a part of my heart. And when death claim me, no doubt I would walk along by that faint light in the brief instant before being flung once again into the abyss of nothingness

  Haruki Murakami

  Memories, Heart, Light

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• Books—they weren't ladders out of the abyss, but they were companions.

  John Green

  Book, Ladders, Companion

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• Madness is the WHO staring into the abyss and denying it is there. Madness is an ostrich who sticks her head in the sand while a pack of hyenas closes around her. - Lanky Man with green eyes

  Dan Brown

  Eye, Men, Ostriches

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• I felt as if I were riding a pendulum. Just as I would swing into the abyss of hopelessness, the pendulum would swing back with some small goodness.

  Ruta Sepetys

  Swings, Riding, Hopelessness

  Ruta Sepetys (2011). “Between Shades of Gray”, p.61, Penguin

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• He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Fighting, Dragons, Long

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• The word connects the visible trace with the invisible thing, the absent thing, the thing that is desired or feared, like a frail emergency bridge flung over an abyss.

  Italo Calvino

  Bridges, Emergencies, Invisible

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• The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life… Or end it… One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Fall, Curves, Safety

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2016). “Chronicles of Nick”, p.344, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Because I'm a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Beautiful, Fall, Down And

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• Soon I will fall asleep and I will wake from this terrible dream. The endless night will fall, and I will rise. I long for that night. I do not fear it. I have had my fill of fear. I have stared too long into the abyss, and now the abyss stares back at me.

  Rick Yancey

  Dream, Fall, Night

  Rick Yancey (2010). “The Monstrumologist: Curse of the Wendigo”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.

  Richard Rohr

  Spiritual, People, Mind

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• I was not much afraid of punishment, I was only afraid of disgrace.But that I feared more than death, more than crime, more than anything in the world. I should have rejoiced if the earth had swallowed me up and stifled me in the abyss. But my invincible sense of shame prevailed over everything . It was my shame that made me impudent, and the more wickedly I behaved the bolder my fear of confession made me. I saw nothing but the horror of being found out, of being publicly proclaimed, to my face, as a thief, as a liar, and slanderer.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Liars, Should Have, Punishment

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1971). “The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”

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• There comes a time when a man finds himself in front of a dark uncrossable abyss, which he himself has spent years digging. He cannot go forward, and has no way back. Words have failed, tears won't help, and who would he call out to? He can't even remember his own name. Then the man sees that on this god's green earth there is but one true suffering: the torment of guilty conscience.

  Ivo Andric

  Dark, Men, Years

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• If you die, Lily ... I’ll steal your soul and take you to the Abyss, where I will keep you in my magical dungeon so you can never escape.

  Nalini Singh

  Soul, Dungeons, Lilies

  Nalini Singh (2011). “Lord of the Abyss”, p.241, Harlequin

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• But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abyss of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it.

  Haruki Murakami

  Ego, Intense, Thirst

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• Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.

  Alan Moore

  Hate, Two, People

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• We're alone, but we are capable of communicating to one another both our loneliness and our desire to break through it. You say, 'I'm alone.' Someone answers, 'I'm alone too.' There's a shift in the scale of power. A bridge is thrown between the two abysses.

  Elie Wiesel

  Loneliness, Break Through, Bridges

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