Apparitions Quotes

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.

Michelangelo

Art, Attitude, Wall

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The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough.

Ezra Pound

Black, Crowds, Faces

"In a Station of the Metro" l. 1 (1916)

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Like vanishing dew,
a passing apparition
or the sudden flash
of lightning -- already gone --
thus should one regard one's self.

Ikkyu

Self, Lightning, Dew

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Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shining

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.7, Library of America

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Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.

Longchenpa

Rest In Peace, Buddhist, Laughter

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I see for others... in order to put on canvas the sudden apparitions which come to me.

Pablo Picasso

Order, Canvas

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Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.

Virginia Woolf

Dark, Surface, Knows

Virginia Woolf (2016). “To the Lighthouse”, p.58, Tyché

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That great mystery of TIME, were there no other; the illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean tide, on which we and all the Universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb,-for we have no word to speak about it.

Thomas Carlyle

Time, Ocean, Rushing

Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.96, Lulu.com

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She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight, A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, Like twilights too her dusky hair, But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn.

William Wordsworth

Time, Stars, Twilight

1804 'She was a Phantom of delight', l.1-4 (published 1807).

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It is the human condition to question one god after another, one appearance after another, or better, one apparition after another, always pursuing the truth of the imagination, which is not the same as the truth of appearance.

Emile Chartier

Imagination, Appearance, Human Condition

"The Gods". Book by Emile Chartier, 1934.

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I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

William Shakespeare

Spirit, I Can

'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 3, sc. 1, l. [53]

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I often see through things right to the apparition itself.

Grace Paley

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I look for ghosts; but none will force Their way to me. 'Tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead.

William Wordsworth

Looks, Way, Ghost

William Wordsworth (1848). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth: Together with a Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North of England”, p.74

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Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?

William Shakespeare

Character, Hands, Play

'Macbeth' (1606) act 2, sc. 1, l. 33

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Apparitions are often confused with hauntings. The difference is that apparitions are "live" (intelligent consciousness) and hauntings are "recordings.

Loyd Auerbach

Confused, Intelligent, Differences

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A politician who has no compassion is nothing but an evil apparition; he is just a ghost, not a real man!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

Real, Men, Compassion

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...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

Steven Pressfield

Inspiration, Artist, Waiting

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Look how the world's poor people are amazed at apparitions, signs and prodigies!

William Shakespeare

People, Looks, World

William Shakespeare (1866). “The Works of William Shakespeare”, p.470

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Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter. Longchenpa Let's stuff our eyes with wonder, let's live as if we'd drop dead in ten seconds. Let's see the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Ray Bradbury

Dream, Rest In Peace, Laughter

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Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names.

John Milton

Halloween, Men, Names

John Milton (1824). “The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors, Principally from the Editions of Thomas Newton, Charles Dunster and Thomas Warton ; to which is Prefixed Newton's Life of Milton”, p.40

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Youth is but the painted shell within which, continually growing, lives that wondrous thing the spirit of a man, biding its moment of apparition, earlier in some than in others.

Lew Wallace

Men, Shells, Growing

Lew Wallace (2016). “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ”, p.111, Bible Study Steps

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Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!

William Shakespeare

Halloween, Memorable, Play

'Macbeth' (1606) act 4, sc. 1, l. 4

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Home is that youthful region where a child is the only real living inhabitant. Parents, siblings, and neighbors are mysterious apparitions who come, go, and do strange unfathomable thing in and around the child, the region's only enfranchised citizen.

Maya Angelou

Children, Sibling, Real

Maya Angelou (2008). “Letter to My Daughter”, p.7, Random House

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...it was a huge creature, luminous, ghastly, and spectral. I have cross-examined these men, one of them a hard-headed countryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell the same story of this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to the hell-hound of the legend. I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the moor at night.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Halloween, Night, Men

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The operation of consciousness has created the 'apparition' called 'me'.

Mooji

Consciousness, Operations

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