Abyss Quotes - Page 16

• Through small apertures we glimpse abysses whose sombre depths turn us faint. And yet over the whole there hovers an extraordinary tenderness.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Life, Glimpse, Aperture

  "The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857".

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• Nothing can throw thee into the infernal abyss so much as this detested word - heed well! - this mine and thine.

  Angelus Silesius

  Thee, Wells, Mines

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• The Way is empty, yet inexhaustible, like an abyss!

  Laozi

  Taoism, Way, Empty

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• How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
  proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many
  magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the
  Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their
  deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their
  own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then
  ever before from applause.

  Tertullian

  Christian, Expression, Flames

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• As soon as we put something into words, we devalue it in a strange way. We think we have plunged into the depths of the abyss, and when we return to the surface the drop of water on our pale fingertips no longer resembles the sea from which it comes. We delude ourselves that we have discovered a wonderful treasure trove, and when we return to the light of day we find that we have brought back only false stones and shards of glass; and yet the treasure goes on glimmering in the dark, unaltered.

  Maurice Maeterlinck

  Dark, Thinking, Glasses

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• Do you fear death? Do you fear that dark abyss? All your deeds laid bare. All your sins punished. I can offer you...an escape.

  Davy Jones

  Dark, Deeds, Sin

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• The day after that wedding night I found that a distance of a thousand miles, abyss and discovery and irremediable metamorphosis, separated me from the day before.

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Distance, Night, Discovery

  "Noces". Book by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, 1945.

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• 'WHEN two lovers are making love, and if they are both no-selves, nothingness, then a spontaneous pleasurable sensation happens. Then their body energy, their whole being, loses all identity; they are no more themselves - they have fallen into abyss. But this can happen only for a moment: again they regain, again they start clinging. That's why people become afraid in love.'

  Rajneesh

  Love, Self, Two

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• I believe that were it not for the Holy Mass, as of this moment the world would be in the abyss.

  Leonard of Port Maurice

  Believe, Catholic, Would Be

  St. Leonard of Port Maurice “Sacred Treasures of the Mass”, Lulu.com

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• Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman-a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Animal, Men, Rope

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA - A Book for All and None (World Classics Series): Philosophical Novel”, p.22, e-artnow

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• For it is only in accepting death that one can truly live, and for the human animal, death has always been the great black beast from the abyss to be dreaded or defeated or avoided or hated - but never looked upon clearly face to face.

  David Zindell

  Animal, Black, Faces

  "The Wild". Book by David Zindell, 1995.

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• Mad, malevolent, and incantatory, The Orphan Palace reads like the hagridden fever dream of one who has not only stared the Abyss in Its black and fathomless face, but welcomed Its gaze in return . . . and become Its living embodiment. It is a journey to be taken by none but the bravest of readers, and by souls with an ardent desire to savor their own damnation.

  Robin Spriggs

  Dream, Taken, Journey

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• My abyss speaks, I have turned my ultimate depth inside out into the light.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Light, Depth, Speak

  "The Portable Nietzsche".

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• Put a man on the brink of the abyss and - in the unlikely event that she doesn't fall into it - he will become a mystic or a madman... Which is probably the same thing!

  Apostolos Doxiadis

  Fall, Men, Events

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• We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial -whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.

  Anna Politkovskaya

  Dog, Ignorance, Special

  "Poisoned by Putin: The horror of Beslan was made still worse by the intimidation of Russia's servile media". www.theguardian.com. September 9, 2004.

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• So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us.Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy,the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war.

  Paul Fussell

  Dream, War, Past

  Paul Fussell (1990). “Thank God for the Atom Bomb, and Other Essays”

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• Mind led body
  to the edge of the precipice.
  They stared in desire
  at the naked abyss.
  If you love me, said mind,
  take that step into silence.
  If you love me, said body,
  turn and exist.

  Anne Stevenson

  Silence, Mind, Desire

  Anne Stevenson (2005). “Poems 1955-2005”, Bloodaxe Books Limited

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• I have nothing but contempt for the deceitful thing men call 'happiness,' and find myself with no choice but to push my characters, whom I pour my heart and soul out to create, into the abyss of tragedy.

  Gen Urobuchi

  Happiness, Writing, Heart

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• This is what I love about novels - both reading them and writing them. They jump into the abyss to be with you where you are.

  John Green

  Reading, Writing, Where You Are

  "An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall". nerdfighteria.info. January 15, 2013.

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• Adam became so proud that he wished to become God and died for his pride; the Son of God humbled Himself unto death, and gave life to the fallen. O abyss of humility! Adam and Eve lost themselves through gluttony, the Lord fasted and died for them, in order to give them life. They were disobedient, Christ fulfilled obedience.

  John of Kronstadt

  Christian, Humility, Pride

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• Into this wild abyss, The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave.

  John Milton

  Nature, Graves, Womb

  John Milton (1801). “The Poetical Works of John Milton: With the Principal Notes of Various Commentators. To which are Added Illustrations, with Some Account of the Life of Milton”, p.160

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• I say to my breath once again, little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can, for I am an abyss that I am trying to cross.

  W. S. Merwin

  Going Away, Trying, Littles

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• STARING INTO THE ABYSS by Richard Thomas is an outstanding book, a grim tapestry of broken lives and shattered dreams, of dark fantasies and dark reflections. It's one of the better single-author collections I've had the pleasure to read in recent years, and as such, gets my highest recommendation. It's also a fine testament to a talent I suspect we are going to be hearing a lot more from, and soon.

  Kealan Patrick Burke

  Dream, Book, Dark

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• I am not surprised that there are gambling houses, like so many snares laid for human avarice; like abysses where many a man's money is engulfed and swallowed up without any hope of return; like frightful rocks against which the gamblers are thrown and perish.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Men, Gambling, Rocks

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• The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.

  John Playfair

  Mind, Grows, Giddy

  John Playfair (1822). “The Works of John Playfair ...: With a Memoir of the Author ...”, p.81

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