Abyss Quotes - Page 17

• 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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• Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams, words!

  Charles Baudelaire

  Dream, Desire, Action

  "Le Gouffre". Poem by Charles Baudelaire, 1862.

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• And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him, who shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Passion, Reflection, Effort

  Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Illustrated By Arthur Rackham”, p.15, Read Books Ltd

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• When you gaze long into the Abyss of Sustainability, the Abyss of Sustainability also gazes into you.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Long, Sustainability

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• I don't find inspiration on Wall Street. I don't find that in Beverly Hills. I don't find that in places where opportunity resides unbridled, and I think the real creative energy and the real juice is in where people are caught, in the economic abyss.

  Harry Belafonte

  Wall, Real, Inspiration

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• As I run, I wonder how many of these people helped buy my leg.
  I wonder about the deep, wide abyss between good intentions and concrete action, and how many of them leapt across it.

  Wendelin Van Draanen

  Running, People, Legs

  Wendelin Van Draanen (2011). “The Running Dream”, p.303, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• I gazed upon the earth and saw that a body, in its tender faithlessness, had located it in the sky. A splendid scarf of blood, looming above the abyss.

  Joë Bousquet

  Blood, Sky, Saws

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• We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence.

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Circles, Names, Light

  Nikos Kazantzakis (2012). “Saviors of God”, p.61, Simon and Schuster

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• But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.

  Kate Chopin

  Sea, Voice, Seductive

  1899 The Awakening, ch.6.

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• There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Two, Allies, Four

  "The Man Who Was Thursday". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, Ch. VIII : The Professor Explains, 1908.

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• Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.

  Heinrich Heine

  Sphinx, Periods, Riddle

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• [Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Spiritual, Fall, Buddhism

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• It must really be a lonelier journey than anyone could imagine. Cutting through absolute darkness, encountering nothing but the occasional hydrogen atom. Flying blindly into the abyss, believing therein lie the answers to the mysteries of the universe.

  Makoto Shinkai

  Lying, Believe, Cutting

  "Fictional character: Takaki Toono". "5 Centimeters Per Second", www.imdb.com. 2007.

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• The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me.

  Markus Zusak

  Stars, Lying, Fall

  Markus Zusak (2014). “Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger”, p.831, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• All the "not readies," all the "I need time," are understandable, but only for a short while. The truth is that there is never a "completely ready," there is never a really "right time." As with any descent to the unconscious, there comes a time when one simply hopes for the best, pinches one's nose, and jumps into the abyss. If this were not so, we would not have needed to create the words heroine, hero, or courage.

  Clarissa Pinkola Estes

  Hero, Needs, Noses

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• Fear not. For fear itself is fed by fear, and all fears pass. Did no one tell you so? Come take my hand, my friend, and we will peer into this fear's abyss. And jump! And know.

  Felix Dennis

  Self Esteem, Hands, Peers

  Felix Dennis (2008). “How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets”, p.232, Penguin

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• If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude.

  A. E. Housman

  Science, Men, Inspire

  Marcus Manilius, A. E. Housman (2011). “Astronomicon”, p.19, Cambridge University Press

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• Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

  Winston Churchill

  War, Moving, Fall

  Hansard 18 June 1940, col. 60

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• Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Country, Sacrifice, Contentment

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• Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.

  Thomas Huxley

  God, Christian, Nature

  Letter to Charles Kingsley, mathcs.clarku.edu. September 23, 1860.

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• Life is a flimsy branch over an abyss.

  Henning Mankell

  Branches, Life Is

  Henning Mankell (2013). “Italian Shoes: A Novel”, p.11, The New Press

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