Abyss Quotes - Page 8

• It was going to be a long, dark night but not quite as dark as it was in the abyss of his heart where there was nothing but hollowness, yet it felt heavy, almost as if someone still resided there.

  Faraaz Kazi

  True Love, Heart, Dark

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• Go ye, who rest so placidly upon the sacred Bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread; go, Teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the forge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, and uttermost abyss of man's neglect, and say can any hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul's bright torch as fast as it is kindled!

  Charles Dickens

  Teacher, Spring, Ignorance

  Charles Dickens (1844). “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, His Relatives, Friends and Enemies: Comprising All His Wills and His Ways, with an Historical Record of what He Did, and what He Didn't ...”, p.245

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• He unwittingly takes a false step and plunges into the abyss.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Inspiration, Steps

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• I thought, 'There are a lot of poets who have the courage to look into the abyss, but there are very few who have the courage to look happiness in the face and write about it,' which is what I wanted to be able to do.

  Kenneth Koch

  Writing, Looks, Able

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• But should we continue to linger amid a scene so featureless and wild, or venture adown some yawning opening into the abyss beneath, where all is fiery and yet dark,-a solitary hell, without suffering or sin,-we would do well to commit ourselves to the guidance of a living poet of the true faculty,-Thomas Aird and see with his eyes.

  Hugh Miller

  Eye, Dark, Yawning

  Hugh Miller, Harriet Myrtle (1859). “Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio”, p.298

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• Early on a difficult climb, especially a solo climb, you’re hyper-aware of the abyss pulling at your back, constantly feeling its call, its immense hunger. To resist takes tremendous conscious effort, you don’t dare let your guard down for an instant. The void puts you on edge, makes your movements tentative and clumsy. But as the climb continues, you grow accustomed to the exposure, you get used to rubbing shoulders with doom, you come to believe in the reliability of your hands and feet and head. You learn to trust your self-control.

  Jon Krakauer

  Believe, Self, Hands

  FaceBook post by Jon Krakauer from Feb 11, 2012

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• The bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire.

  Pope Gregory I

  Fire, Agony, Perfect

  "A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Volume 1". Book by Henry Charles Lea, 1887.

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• We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K.

  Eddie George

  Taken, Rose, House

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• America has become one of the foremost countries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies between the handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth and luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Country, Lying, Luxury

  "Letter To American Workers". Pravda, No. 178, August 22, 1918. Collected Works, Volume 28, p. 62 - 75, www.marxists.org.

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• Here I had tried a straightforward extrapolation of technology, and found myself precipitated over an abyss. It's a problem we face every time we consider the creation of intelligences greater than our own. When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity - a place where extrapolation breaks down and new models must be applied - and the world will pass beyond our understanding.

  Vernor Vinge

  Technology, Understanding, World

  Vernor Vinge (2002). “The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge”, p.44, Macmillan

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• Blue is the insides of something mysterious and lonely. I'd look at fish and birds, thinking the sky and water colored them. The first abyss is blue. An artist must go beyond the mercy of satin or water-from a gutty hue to that which is close to royal purple. All seasons and blossoms inbetween. Lavender. Theatrical and outrageous electric. Almost gray. True and false blue. Water and oil. The gas jet breathing in oblivion. The unstruck match. The blue of absence. The blue of deep presence. The insides of something perfect.

  Yusef Komunyakaa

  Lonely, Thinking, Artist

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• We live in such constant nearness to the abyss of past time that the moment is endlessly sucked into.

  John Jeremiah Sullivan

  Past, Moments, Constant

  John Jeremiah Sullivan (2011). “Pulphead: Essays”, p.267, Macmillan

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• To confess your sins to God is not to tell [God] anything [God] doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the bridge.

  Frederick Buechner

  Bridges, Sin, Knows

  Frederick Buechner (1973). “Wishful thinking: a theological ABC.”, Harper San Francisco

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• When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling into deep, black space. And this is worse than tears, deeper than regret or pain or sorrow, it is the abyss into which Satan was plunged. There is no climbing back, no ray of light, no sound of human voice or human touch of hand.

  Henry Miller

  Pain, Regret, Fall

  Henry Miller, John Calder (1985). “A Henry Miller reader”, Riverrun Pr

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• Marisa! Marisa!” The cry was torn from Lord Asriel, and with the snow leopard beside her, with a roaring in her ears, Lyra’s mother stood and found her footing and leapt with all her heart, to hurl herself against the angel and her daemon and her dying lover, and seize those beating wings, and bear them all down together into the abyss.

  Philip Pullman

  Mother, Heart, Angel

  Philip Pullman (2007). “The Amber Spyglass”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. "Once upon a time" is how all the best children's stories begin, and "prostitute" is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let's keep that beginning.

  Paulo Coelho

  Children, Book, Feet

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• I cling unto the burning Æthyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air. And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God. And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh.

  Aleister Crowley

  Air, Sea, Rose

  Aleister Crowley (2012). “The Best of the Equinox, Enochian Magic”, p.141, Weiser Books

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• Meditation is not a technique to master;
  it is the highest form of prayer,
  a naked act of love and effortless surrender
  into the silent abyss beyond all knowing

  Adyashanti

  Prayer, Knowing, Meditation

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• Meditation gives you the wherewithal to pause, observe how easily the mind can exaggerate the severity of a setback, and resist getting drawn into the abyss.

  Richard Davidson

  Giving, Meditation, Mind

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• In the face of horror ... there is no other answer than the cross of Christ: Love that descends to the abyss of evil.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Evil, Answers, Faces

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• In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small!

  James Blish

  Retrospect, Steps, Irrevocable

  "A Case of Conscience". Book by James Blish, Chapter 13 (p. 158), 1958.

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• I think of life as an inn where I have to stay until the abyss coach arrives. I don't know where it will take me, for I know nothing.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Inns, Take Me

  "A Factless Autobiography". Book by Richard Zenith Edition, p. 40, 2006.

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• In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness is the source in which all objects arise and subside. As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Awareness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifest potential, the silent abyss beyond all knowing.

  Adyashanti

  Knowing, Meditation, Listening

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• But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone.

  John F. Kennedy

  Dark, Men, Presidential

  Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 25 September 1961

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• You have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done.

  Ian Kershaw

  Men, Damn You, Historical

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