Detachment Quotes - Page 10

• We are predators, whose all-seeing eyes were meant to give them detachment.

  Anne Rice

  Eye, Giving, Predator

  "Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles". www.imdb.com. 1994.

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• The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Beautiful, Men, Justice

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “Farewell to Arms: The Hemingway Library Edition”, p.226, Simon and Schuster

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• To-day we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed.

  Oswald Spengler

  Drama, Views, Media

  "The Decline of the West (Volume II)". Book by Oswald Spengler, 1928.

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• The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Imagination, Everyday, Degrees

  H. P. Lovecraft (2014). “The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft”, p.13, Race Point Publishing

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• Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.

  Emile M. Cioran

  People, Life And Death, Overcoming

  "Tears and Saints". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1937.

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• I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.

  Margaret Atwood

  Depression, Lying, Stupid

  Margaret Atwood (1988). “Cat's eye”, Doubleday, 1989

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• Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can't make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don't get back on track somehow, I'm dead, that's the sense I get. There isn't a single strong emotion inside me.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Depression, Strong, Lying

  Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Emmerich (2002). “Goodbye Tsugumi”, p.163, Grove Press

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• She watched the prairies the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below - and she noted that the sense of detachment one feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer. - Dagny Taggart

  Ayn Rand

  Distance, Past, Rivers

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1972, Penguin

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• She’s never where she is,' I said. 'She’s only inside her head.

  Janet Fitch

  Numbness, Emptiness, Said

  Janet Fitch (2013). “White Oleander”, p.145, Hachette UK

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• Better to operate with detachment, then; better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor; best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one's way anew from the materials at hand.

  Lewis Hyde

  Hands, Littles, Way

  Lewis Hyde (2010). “Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art”, p.398, Macmillan

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• Unless, of course, you insist on identifying yourself with the people and things you love; and thereby seriously disturb yourself.

  Albert Ellis

  Attachment, People, Things You Love

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• I had the right amount of detachment to go back and really appreciate what I had grown up with. There’s a particular style that is very Peru that you don’t see anywhere else; it’s got so many different imprints. When you mix Incan minimalism with the heavy, ornate Spanish Baroque, it is very interesting.

  Mario Testino

  Interesting, Appreciate, Style

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• I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.

  Raymond Chandler

  Stars, Numbness, Space

  Raymond Chandler (2002). “The Long Goodbye: A Novel”, p.252, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• A mother's sorrow is more true, honorable, and beautiful than the detachment of the sage.

  Edward Abbey

  Beautiful, Mother, Sorrow

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.26, RosettaBooks

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• I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago, divorced myself from it emotionally. It gives me an artistic detachment that I find valuable. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise, for the sake of cell phones and Jet Skis.

  George Carlin

  Country, Adventure, Thinking

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• I felt I was drawing close to that age, that place in life, where you realize one day what you'd told yourself was a Zen detachment turns out to be naked fear. You'd had one serious love relationship in your life and it had ended in tragedy, and the tragedy had broken something inside you. But instead of trying to repair the broken place, or at least really stop and look at it, you skated and joked. You had friends, you were a decent citizen. You hurt no one. And your life was somehow just about half of what it could be.

  Roland Merullo

  Hurt, Drawing, Broken

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• ...for those whose favorite season is autumn with its days of cloudless sky, of spacious and clear, far-flung panoramas - those who view nature with detachment, for whom nature's appeal is primarily pictorial, classicists as opposed to romanticists, perhaps. On such a day, one is usually excited, physically exhilarated, mentally stimulated. Only not much is left for the imagination.

  Charlton Ogburn

  Fall, Autumn, Views

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• Concentration is not thinking of one thing. On the contrary, it is excluding all thoughts, since all thoughts obstruct the sense of one's true being. All efforts are to be directed simply to removing the veil of ignorance. Concentrating the mind solely on the Self will lead to happiness or bliss. Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from straying outwards is called detachment (vairagya). Fixing them in the Self is spiritual practice (sadhana). Concentrating on the heart is the same as concentrating on the Self. Heart is another name for Self.

  Ramana Maharshi

  Spiritual, Heart, Ignorance

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• To relinquish the futile effort to control change is one of the strengthening forces of true detachment & thus true love.

  Sharon Salzberg

  Effort, Meditation, Force

  Sharon Salzberg (2008). “Lovingkindness”, p.72, Shambhala Publications

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• We must have a real living determination to reach holiness. ''I will be a saint'' means I will despoil myself of all that is not God; I will strip my heart of all created things; I will live in poverty and detachment; I will renounce my will, my inclinations, my whims and fancies, and make make myself a willing slave to the will of God.

  Mother Teresa

  God, Mother, Determination

  Mother Teresa (2001). “Mother Teresa: Essential Writings”

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• Attachment to the Divine leads to detachment from the mind. This leads to the realization that the nature of the Seer and the Divine are the same.

  A. G. Mohan

  Attachment, Mind, Realization

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• Regard as free not those whose status makes them outwardly free, but those who are free in their character and conduct. For we should not call men truly free when they are wicked and dissolute, since they are slaves to worldly passions. Freedom and happiness of soul consist in genuine purity and detachment from transitory things.

  Anthony the Great

  Christian, Passion, Character

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• I'm something that I used to be. I'm never where I feel I am, and if I seek myself, I don't know who's seeking me. My boredom with everything has numbed me. I feel banished from my soul.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Numbness, Boredom, Soul

  Fernando Pessoa (2002). “The Book of Disquiet”, p.172, Penguin UK

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• This morning I suddenly catch myself: I'm not there, I'm so lost in thought, I don't know what's going on around me. Can you think yourself to death?

  Anna Kamienska

  Morning, Thinking, Numbness

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• We do not truly speak except at a distance. There is no word not severed.

  Edmond Jabes

  Distance, Numbness, Emptiness

  Edmond Jabès (1993). “The Book of Margins”, p.174, University of Chicago Press

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