Respite Quotes

• Art is a spiritual, immaterial respite from the hardships of life.

  Fernando Botero

  Life, Spiritual, Art

  69 Copy quote

• The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Agony, Feelings, Misery

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1823). “Frankenstein Or the Modern Prometheus”

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• I can be alone without being lonely. In fact, those times of solitude are necessary respite for a beleaguered soul, set upon by the pressures of life. I need to take whatever moments I can to just be still.

  Steve Goodier

  Lonely, Soul, Solitude

  12 Copy quote

• The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death.

  Joseph de Maistre

  Life, Death, Sacrifice

  18 Copy quote

• Night is real. Night is not an absence of light, but in fact, it is daytime that is a brief respite from the looming darkness.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Real, Night, Light

  20 Copy quote

• Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moments respite deserve only the end of a rope.

  L. Neil Smith

  Liberty, Rope, Wealth

  L. Neil Smith (2001). “The American Zone”, p.141, Macmillan

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• Play matters because it gives us a brief respite from the tyranny of apparent purpose.

  Jill Vialet

  Play, Giving, Purpose

  7 Copy quote

• Music furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Care, Lasts, Hours

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.546, Cambridge University Press

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• There have been days when I sought respite from my life, only to find myself calling every hour to check on it.

  Robert Breault

  Freedom, Calling, Hours

  8 Copy quote

• For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a 'fiancé,' why she had played at beginning again. Even there, in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too.

  Albert Camus

  Taken, Home, Long

  "The Stranger". Book by Albert Camus, 1942.

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• Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another--which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver.

  Alain de Botton

  Goal, Anxiety, Promise

  Alain De Botton (2008). “Status Anxiety”, p.197, Vintage

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• As strenuous challenge or contemplative retreat, the parks and other units of the national lands offer welcome respite from the world, a safety valve for body and spirit.

  T. H. Watkins

  Nature, Land, Safety

  7 Copy quote

• Happiness is never there to stay [...] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude.

  Andre Maurois

  6 Copy quote

• - and how time flies! What, has it already been twenty years, already forty years that we are together? Why, how terrible! We haven't yet said all we wanted to say to each other... May we have a little respite, or else may we be allowed to begin all over again!

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Years, Time Flies, Together

  52 Copy quote

• We have to use our freedoms and privileges to see what respite we can give to those less equipped to deal with their challenges.

  Chloe Hooper

  Giving, Challenges, Use

  Chloe Hooper (2009). “Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• Poetry affords us a respite in which we may gather renewed strength for the old struggle to adapt ourselves to reality.

  Robert Haven Schauffler

  Struggle, Reality, May

  4 Copy quote

• We experience moments absolutely free from worry. These brief respites are called panic.

  Cullen Hightower

  Worry, Experience, Panic

  23 Copy quote

• I do not wish to grow old, to outlive my illusions. Only a short respite from cares and sorrow, a brief time of flowers, and music, and love, and laughter, and ecstatic tears.

  Anne Reeve Aldrich

  Laughter, Flower, Sorrow

  Anne Reeve Aldrich (1899). “A Village Ophelia”

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• Without a doubt, the warming of the past 100 years has been a welcome respite from a long and deadly Little Ice Age. The possibility that humans may have contributed to the recent warming does not make it any less welcome.

  James Taylor

  Past, Years, Ice

  7 Copy quote

• It is what we see when we imagine what the afterlife must be like: our happiest triumphs, our most sincere moments, stolen from the seam of our lives, a respite just before the onset of imminent tragedy.

  Joe Meno

  Afterlife, Tragedy, Triumph

  Joe Meno (2006). “The Boy Detective Fails”, p.285, Akashic Books

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• RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Expectations, Done, Assassins

  Ambrose Bierce (2011). “Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs”, p.776, Library of America

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• Oh, injurious love, that respites me a life, whose very comfort is still a dying horror

  William Shakespeare

  Love You, Dying, Comfort

  William Shakespeare, Edmond Malone, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Mr. Theobald (Lewis) (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare: With the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators”, p.74

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• I had a sister who died and my mother passed away. I know that grief comes in waves. When deep grief hits, I know that it hurts like hell, and then you get a little bit of a respite, and then it comes back, and it hurts like hell. I know it can be survived.

  Emily Saliers

  Mother, Hurt, Grief

  "Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls | Outspoken. Unapologetic. A Voice for Women". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee-- Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" Quothe the Raven, "Nevermore.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Memories, Angel, Air

  Edgar Allan Poe, Brod Bagert (1995). “Edgar Allan Poe”, p.17, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

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• The TV set, or Satanic family altar, has grown more elaborate since the early 50s, from the tiny, fuzzy screen to huge ‘entertainment centers’ covering entire walls with several TV monitors. What started as an innocent respite from everyday life has become in itself a replacement for real life for millions, a major religion of the masses.

  Anton Szandor LaVey

  Wall, Real, Everyday

  39 Copy quote