Empty Quotes - Page 9

• One man watches a river flow by. If he does not wish it to flow, to change ceaselessly in accord with its nature, he will suffer great pain. Another man understands that nature of the river is to change constantly, regardless of his likes and dislikes, and therefore he does not suffer. To know existence as this flow, empty of lasting pleasure, void of self, is to find that which is stable and free of suffering, to find true peace in the world.

  Ajahn Chah

  Pain, Men, Self

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• I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Money, Men, White Man

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• Please DO waste art materials. Use paper. Empty paint jars. Deplete pens. if it's teaching you stuff, it's not being wasted.

  Danny Gregory

  Art, Teaching, Use

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• When a person spends his entire day with no concern but Allah alone, Allah will take care of all his needs and take care of all that is worrying him; He will empty his heart so that it will be filled only with love for Him.

  Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

  Heart, Worry, Needs

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• When Allah tests you it is never to destroy you. When He removes something in your possession it is only in order to empty your hands for an even greater gift.

  Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

  Order, Hands, Tests

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• A bizarrerie of fires, cunabulum of light, it moved with a deft, almost dainty deliberation, phasing into and out of existence like a storm-shot piece of evening; or perhaps the darkness between the flares was more akin to its truest nature swirl of black ashes assembled in prancing cadence to the lowing note of desert wind down the arroyo behind buildings as empty yet filled as the pages of unread books or stillnesses between the notes of a song.

  Roger Zelazny

  Song, Book, Fire

  Roger Zelazny (1989). “Frost and Fire”, William Morrow

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• I know from experience that to one who thinks much and feels deeply, it often seems that he has only to put down his thoughts and feelings in order to produce something altogether out of the common; yet as soon as he sets to work he falls into a certain mannerism of style and common phraseology; his thoughts do not come spontaneously, and one might almost say that it is not the mind that directs the pen, but the pen leads the mind into common, empty artificiality.

  Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Fall, Thinking, Order

  Henryk Sienkiewicz (1897). “Without Dogma: A Novel of Modern Poland”

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• I'm wearing black leggings and a loose top festooned with a Menger sponge of empty pockets stitched out of smaller pockets and smaller still, almost down to the limits of visibility woven in freefall by hordes of tiny otaku spiders, I'm told, their genes programmed by an obsessive-compulsive sartorial topologist.

  Charles Stross

  Wearing Black, Pockets, Obsessive Compulsive

  Charles Stross (2010). “Glasshouse”, p.26, Hachette UK

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• The cold blast at the casement beats;The window-panes are white;The snow whirls through the empty streets;It is a dreary night!

  Epes Sargent

  Night, Window Panes, White

  Epes Sargent (1849). “Songs of the sea, with other poems”, p.119

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• In Los Angeles you get the sense sometimes that there's a mysterious patrol at night: when the streets are empty and everyone's asleep, they go erasing the past. It's like a bad Ray Bradbury story.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Past, Night, Rays

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• My biggest fear is expending the best and most exciting energy in sketches, no matter how quickly executed. I often need to empty the rubbish bin several times before regaining the fresh quality of the initial exploratory sketches.

  Catherine Stock

  Quality, Energy, Needs

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• Imagine a revised edition of Shakespeare... a big, thick book with an elegant cover... You open it and find that there are no pages, just an empty box of space. On the back wall of the box is a small mirror. You look into it, see yourself, and now you know all you need to know about Shakespeare.

  Carter Ratcliff

  Wall, Book, Mirrors

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• To trust yourself is to trust Silence. To trust your own heart is to trust the wisdom that is radiating and shining. All the thoughts, feelings, desires, and fears are just a superimposition that is called 'myself.' When all that disappears, for at least a moment, your Self shines forth. Radiantly, clear, and empty. Needing nothing, nourished, and overflowing.

  Eli Jaxon-Bear

  Heart, Self, Silence

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• The vestiges of the bicameral mind do not exist in any empty psychological space.

  Julian Jaynes

  Space, Mind, Psychological

  Julian Jaynes (2000). “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”, p.365, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There's not much benefit in attacking an empty house.

  Eiji Yoshikawa

  House, Benefits, Attacking

  Eiji Yoshikawa (2000). “Taiko: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan”, p.391, Kodansha International

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• Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas.

  James Alan Gardner

  Glasses, Toxic, Half

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• The problem with anger is that once it burns out, you're left with empty tanks.

  Craig Johnson

  Anger, Tanks, Problem

  Craig Johnson (2004). “The Cold Dish: A Longmire Mystery”, p.188, Penguin

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• I confess that Magic teacheth many superfluous things, and curious prodigies for ostentation; leave them as empty things, yet be not ignorant of their causes. But those things which are for the profit of men -- for the turning away of evil events, for the destroying of sorceries, for the curing of diseases, for the exterminating of phantasms, for the preserving of life, honor, or fortune -- may be done without offense to God or injury to religion, because they are, as profitable, so necessary.

  Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

  Men, Evil, Ignorant

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• And once I knew a meditative rose That never raised its head from bowing down, Yet drew its inspiration from the stars. It bloomed and faded here beside the road, And, being a poet, wrote on empty air With fragrance all the beauty of its soul.

  Henry Abbey

  Stars, Inspiration, Air

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• Home is a place in the mind. When it is empty, it frets. It is fretful with memory, faces and places and times gone by. Beloved images rise up in disobedience and make a mirror for emptiness.

  Maeve Brennan

  Memories, Home, Mirrors

  Maeve Brennan (2015). “The Visitor”, p.8, Counterpoint

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• A wedding is at once a crowded place and a private room, packed with trusts and empty of all but the heart's letters which one other heart may read and decipher.

  Mark McMorris

  Heart, Letters, May

  Mark McMorris (2003). “The Blaze of the Poui: Poems”, p.67, University of Georgia Press

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• Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

  Khalil Gibran

  Heart, Hands, Soul

  Khalil Gibran (2007). “Kahlil Gibran: Masterpieces”

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• With their tinted windows up, the cars of the rich go like dark eggs down the roads of Delhi. Every now and then an egg will crack open a woman's hand, dazzling with gold bangles, stretches out an open window, flings an empty mineral water bottle onto the road and then the window goes up, and the egg is resealed.

  Aravind Adiga

  Dark, Hands, Eggs

  Aravind Adiga (2008). “The White Tiger”, p.81, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• My new work deals with emptying my body: 'Boat emptying, stream entering.' This means that you have to empty the body/boat to the point where you can really be connected with the fields of energy around you. I think that men and women in our Western culture are completely disconnected from that energy, and in my new work I want to make this connection possible.

  Marina Abramovic

  Mean, Men, Thinking

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• When you realize yourself as completely empty and devoid of all form... this is wisdom, When you realize yourself as the fullness of love overflowing itself without object... this is bliss, And when you are aware of yourself incarnate in the appearance of form... this is leela.

  Eli Jaxon-Bear

  Realizing, Bliss, Appearance

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