Emptiness Quotes - Page 15

• The past is only an unreliable memory held in the present. The future is only a projection of our present conceptions. The present itself vanishes as soon as we try to grasp it. So why bother with attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?

  Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

  Memories, Past, Trying

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• Ideas are easy to come by, they spring effortlessly out of the vacuity of the mind and cost nothing. When they are held and projected onto one's self or others they become a project. When the project is enacted it becomes the work, and when the work is completed it appears to be self-existent. Creation is the process of form manifesting from emptiness, where that which arises from the mind comes into existence. Yet the distance between conception and realisation may be enormous, as vast as the distance between the stars.

  Robert Beer

  Stars, Spring, Work

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• Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged - people keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can't. Everything is deeply intertwingled.

  Ted Nelson

  People, Pretending

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• I am ashamed of my emptiness," said the Word to the Work. "I know how poor I am when I see you," said the Work to the Word.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Poor, Said, Ashamed

  Rabindranath Tagore, Mohit Kumar Ray (2007). “Poems”, p.412, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• It’s hard to grieve in a town where everything that happens is God’s will. It’s hard to know what to do with your emptiness when you’re not supposed to have emptiness.

  Miriam Toews

  Grieving, Towns, Happens

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

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• People frequently comment on the emptiness in one night stands, but emptiness here has always been just another word for darkness. Blind encounters writing sonnets no one can ever read. Desire and pain communicated in the vague language of sex.
  None of which made sense to me until much later when I realized everything I thought I'd retained of my encounters added up to so very little, hardly enduring, just shadows of love outlining nothing at all.

  Mark Z. Danielewski

  Sex, Pain, Writing

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• So, to meditate is to purge the mind of its self-centered activity. And if you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness. The mind is uncontaminated by society; it is no longer subject to any influence, to the pressure of any desire. It is completely alone, and being alone, untouched it is innocent. Therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being. This whole process is meditation.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Self, Silence, Meditation

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• In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life.

  Ken Wilber

  Lying, Book, Reality

  Ken Wilber (2004). “The Simple Feeling of Being: Visionary, Spiritual, and Poetic Writings”, p.141, Shambhala Publications

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• Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.

  Walker Percy

  Old Neighborhood, Shows, Persons

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer: A Novel”, p.41, Open Road Media

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• The usefulness of a pot comes from its emptiness.

  Laozi

  Pot, Usefulness

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• When I talk to people who feel this emptiness and lack of fulfillment, I recommend they find a source of balance in their lives. I suggest they find a way to "give back" to the world in order to feel a sense of completeness.

  Harold S. Kushner

  Order, People, Giving

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• Search for love, for it is the most important ingredient of life. Without it, you life will echo emptiness. With it, your life will vibrate with warmth and meaning. Even during any hardship, love will shine through.

  Nikita Koloff

  Echoes, Shining, Important

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• I somehow make it through the first month. I dress and brush my teeth when they tell me to. And I experience the hollow feeling of complete loss, which is emptiness.

  Holly Goldberg Sloan

  Loss, Feelings, Teeth

  Holly Goldberg Sloan (2013). “Counting by 7s”, p.116, Penguin

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• To whom to speak when the other no longer is?
  The place is empty when emptiness occupies all of the place.

  Edmond Jabes

  Speak, Empty

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• My Father... He was there when I didn't understand, he was there when I was wrong, he was there when I cried, he was there when I lied. For some reason my dad was always there, when I needed him the most. His love was never ending. And now that he's gone there is an emptiness in my world, but not in my heart.

  Michael Jordan

  Dad, Father, Heart

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• God help us to live slowly:
  To move simply:
  To look softly:
  To allow emptiness:
  To let the heart create for us.
  Amen.

  Michael Leunig

  Moving, Heart, Looks

  Michael Leunig (2006). “When I Talk to You: A Cartoonist Talks to God”, p.59, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• To starve a child of the spell of the story, of the canter of the poem, oral or written, is a kind of living burial. It is to immure him in emptiness.

  George Steiner

  Children, Stories, Kind

  George Steiner (2010). “Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?”, p.219, Faber & Faber

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• We live in an era when established values are no longer valid, when prodigious discoveries are being made every year, when catastrophes of unbelievable proportions occur weekly. In ancient Greek the word “chaos” means “gaping void” or “yawning emptiness.” The most effective response to the chaos in our lives is the creation of new forms of literature, music, poetry, art and cinema.

  Werner Herzog

  Art, Mean, Yawning

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• You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.

  Sarah Kay

  Phones, Space, Phone Calls

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• I would hold on, and hold on, until my hands clutch at emptiness.

  Juliet Marillier

  Hands, Clutch

  Juliet Marillier (2010). “Son of the Shadows: Book Two of the Sevenwaters Trilogy”, p.47, Macmillan

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• Make your will one! Don't listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don't listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty- and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind.

  Zhuangzi

  Waiting, Listening, Mind

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• I need not to be afraid of the void. The void is part of my person. I need to enter consciously into it. To try to escape from it is to try to live a lie. It is also to cease to be. My acceptance of despair and emptiness constitutes my being; to have the courage to accept despair is to be.

  Michael Novak

  Lying, Acceptance, Despair

  Michael Novak (1970). “The Experience of Nothingness”, p.67, Transaction Publishers

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• Life is an empty dream.

  Robert Browning

  Life, Dream, Empty

  Robert Browning (1850). “Poems”, p.32

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• He who would prove all life, leaves it empty. To know the way of everything is to be left with the geometry of things and with the substance of nothing. To reduce the world to an equation is to leave it without head or feet.

  Leopoldo Alas

  Life, Feet, Substance

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• He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.

  Khalil Gibran

  Life, Angel, Evil

  Khalil Gibran (2007). “Kahlil Gibran: Masterpieces”

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