Abyss Quotes - Page 14

• The damned are in the abyss of Hell, as within a woeful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments, in all their senses and members, because as they have employed all their senses and their members in sinning, so shall they suffer in each of them the punishment due to sin.

  Saint Francis de Sales

  Punishment, Cities, Suffering

  "Introduction to the Devout Life". Book by Saint Francis de Sales, Pt. 2, ch. 15, 1609.

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• Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad'st it pregnant: What is in me dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the heighth of this great Argument I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.

  John Milton

  God, Heart, Dark

  John Milton (2013). “Paradise Lost Simplified!: Includes Modern Translation, Study Guide, Historical Context, Biography, and Character Index”, p.9, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss.

  Max Muller

  Bridges, Arches, Pillars

  "Chips from a German Workshop, Volume I: Essays on the Science of Religion". Book by Max Müller, p. 45, 1867.

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• The anchor of meaning resides in an abyss, deeper than the reach of despair. Yet the abyss is not not infinite; its bottom may suddenly be discovered within the confines of a human heart or under the debris of might doubts. This may be the vocation of man: to say "Amen" to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God.

  Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Heart, Men, Anchors

  Abraham Joshua Heschel (1965). “Who is Man?”, p.80, Stanford University Press

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• The "through-and-through" universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity , with no possibilities; its relations, with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a contract with no reserved rights ... It seems too buttoned-up and white-chokered and clean-shaven a thing to speak for the vast slow-breathing unconscious Kosmos with its dread abysses and its unknown tides.

  William James

  Breathing, White, Rights

  "Essays in Radical Empiricism". Book by William James, Ch. 12 : Absolutism and Empiricism, 1912.

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• Every consession gives rise to further concessions, we cannot back down, because behind us there is only an abyss, we must keep our promises and demand that they be kept.

  Vaclav Havel

  Giving, Promise, Demand

  "Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala". Book by Václav Havel, translated by Paul Wilson. Chapter 5: "The Politics of Hope", p. 110, 1990.

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• As a child walking over a slippery and dangerous path cries out, "Father, I am falling!" and has but a moment to catch his father's hand, so every believer sees hours when only the hand of Jesus comes between him and the abysses of destruction.

  Theodore L. Cuyler

  Jesus, Children, Father

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 89, 1895.

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• If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times. Reason is language - Logos; I gnaw on this marrowbone and will gnaw myself to death over it. It is still always dark over these depths for me: I am still always awaiting an apocalyptic angel with a key to this abyss.

  Johann Georg Hamann

  Angel, Dark, Keys

  "Briefwechsel ('Correspondence')". Book edited by Arthur Henkel, Volume 5, p. 177, 1955 - 1975.

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• Hark! o'er the dread abyss the sea-bird screams-- The rocks resound--again the lightning gleams!

  John Ramsay

  Rocks, Sea, Bird

  John Ramsay (1836). “Poems”, p.9

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• Ah, what balance is needed at
  the edges of such an abyss.
  I am left alone on the surface
  of a turning planet. What
  to do but, like Michelangelo's
  Adam, put my hand
  out into unknown space,
  hoping for the reciprocating touch?

  R. S. Thomas

  Hands, Space, Balance

  "Between Here and Now" by R. S. Thomas, ("Threshold", p. 110), 1981.

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• It is dangerous it seems to me for a civilization when there is a complete abyss betewen people in general and the artists. Or is it always so? The poets who are most ardently on the people's side write in such a way that the people cannot see rhyme nor reason to their work.

  May Sarton

  Writing, Artist, Civilization

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• In America, snobs who wouldn't be seen dead with a lottery ticket play the stock market. We like to gamble. Winning, we have closed our eyes, leapt across the yawning abyss, and landed knee-deep in daisies. Even losing has a certain gloomy glamour: the gods of chance are worthy opponents; we have engaged them in hand-to-hand combat and though we lost, at least we shrank not from the contest.

  Barbara Holland

  Eye, Winning, Yawning

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• Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
  Against stupidity the very gods
  Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
  Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
  Wise foundress of the system of the world,
  Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
  Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,
  Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
  Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Death, Wise, Daughter

  Friedrich Schiller (1861). “Schiller's Complete Works”, p.435

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• He who is not a bird should not build his nest over abysses.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Bird, Nests, Should

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.137, Penguin

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• The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

  Cesare Pavese

  Depression, Sound, Gauges

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• For as long as I am alive, I will not rest in my desire to lead my people out of an abyss of corruption and poverty.

  Fawzia Koofi

  Long, People, Desire

  "Will Fawzia Koofi Be Afghanistan's First Female President?" by Fawzia Koofi, www.thedailybeast.com. January 6, 2012.

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• Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence, --the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all.

  Emma Goldman

  Struggle, Mean, Men

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism and Other Essays”, p.25, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Shut your eyes, wait, think of nothing. Now, open them ... one sees nothing but a great coloured undulation. What then? An irradiation and glory of colour. This is what a picture should give us ... an abyss in which the eye is lost, a secret germination, a coloured state of grace ... loose conciousness. Descend with the painter into the dim tangled roots of things, and rise again from them in colours, be steeped in the light of them.

  Paul Cezanne

  Eye, Thinking, Light

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• [For men] to feel their souls withering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes - this, nature bade not, - this, God blesses not, - this, humanity for no long time is able to endure.

  John Ruskin

  Men, Long, Political

  John Ruskin (2012). “Selections From the Works of John Ruskin”, p.215, tredition

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• God is infinite and without end, but the soul's desire is an abyss which cannot be filled except by a Good which is infinite; and the more ardently the soul longeth after God, the more she wills to long after him; for God is a Good without drawback, and a well of living water without bottom, and the soul is made in the image of God, and therefore it is created to know and love God.

  Johannes Tauler

  God, Long, Water

  Gottesfreund (im Oberland.), Rulman Merswin, Johannes Tauler (1857). “The history and life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg: with twenty-five of his sermons (Temp. 1340)”, p.293

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• I have seen a place-its name is Eternal Hatred It is built in the deepest abyss of the stones of mortal sin. Pride was the first stone-this was seen in Lucifer.

  Mechthild of Magdeburg

  Pride, Names, Hatred

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• Oh you who have been removed from God in his solitude by the abyss of time, how can you expect to reach him without dying?

  Mansur Al-Hallaj

  Death, Solitude, Dying

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• I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.

  Yusef Komunyakaa

  Psychics, Practice, Black

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• If you feel uncomfortable on stage, you can very easily descend into a sort of abyss, convinced you're the worst actor ever, that you're a disgrace to the profession, that you're a disgrace to yourself. It's an awful feeling.

  Stephen Dillane

  Feelings, Actors, Awful

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Hands, Progress

  "Homo Neanderthalensis Baltimore Sun". "The Impossible Mencken" by H. L. Mencken, June 29, 1925.

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