Absent Mindedness Quotes

• Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joy, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs, and tears.

  Hippocrates

  Laughter, Pain, Grief

  7 Copy quote

• I am gay on the outside, especially among my own folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death; some kind of sweet peace, some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness.

  Frederic Chopin

  Life, Dream, Sweet

  Frederic Chopin (2013). “Chopin's Letters”, p.166, Courier Corporation

  101 Copy quote

  Show source

• The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting, For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering. And the touch of absent mindedness is more than any line, Since direction counts for nothing when the gods set up a sign.

  Nathalia Crane

  Tails, Lines, Bees

  Nathalia Crane (1925). “The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The secret motive of the absent-minded is to be innocent while guilty. Absent-mindedness is spurious innocence.

  Saul Bellow

  Secret, Innocence, Guilty

  1987 More Die of Heartbreak.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit.

  Hippocrates

  Laughter, Pain, Mistake

  Hippocrates (1967). “Hippocrates”

  371 Copy quote

  Show source

• Achilles absent was Achilles still!

  Homer

  Achilles, Absence, Stills

  Homer (1818). “The Iliad of Homer. Translated by A. Pope. A new edition. Adorned with plates”, p.476

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never find fault with the absent.

  Alexander Pope

  Faults, Literature, Absence

  9 Copy quote

• Among absent lovers, ardor always fares better.

  Propertius

  Lovers, Absent, Ardor

  7 Copy quote

• Greater things are believed of those who are absent.

  Tacitus

  Belief, Absence, Greater Things

  "Historiae (Histories)". Book by Tacitus, circa 104-109 AD.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never speak ill of an absent friend.

  Plautus

  Friends, Speak, Ill

  Plautus (2007). “The Rope and Other Plays”, p.182, Penguin UK

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Deism, historically, produces atheism. First you make God a landlord, then an absent landlord, then he becomes simply absent.

  N. T. Wright

  Atheism, Firsts, Produce

  10 Copy quote

• Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came human beings; they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate--for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.

  Albert Camus

  Book, Reality, Cities

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Fall”, p.50, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

  Show source