Emptiness Quotes - Page 29

• In the end we had the pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how we put them together, gaps remained, oddly shaped emptinesses mapped by what surrounded them, like countries we couldn't name.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Country, Names, Together

  Jeffrey Eugenides (1993). “The Virgin Suicides: A Novel”, p.241, Macmillan

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• We do not pray for immortality, but only not to see our acts and all things stripped suddenly of all their meaning; for then it is the utter emptiness of everything reveals itself.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Existentialism, Praying, Immortality

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• About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.

  Carl Jung

  Suffering, Neurosis, Mental Health

  "Modern Man in Search of a Soul".

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• The sins of the Midwest: flatness, emptiness, a necessary acceptance of the familiar. Where is the romance in being buried alive? In growing old?

  Stewart O'Nan

  Acceptance, Romance, Midwest

  Stewart O'Nan (2008). “Songs for the Missing: A Novel”, p.12, Penguin

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• I thought this man had long ago drained everything from my heart. But now something strong and bitter flowed and made me feel another emptiness in a place I didn't know was there. I cursed this man aloud so he could hear. You had dog eyes. You jumped and followed whoever called you. Now you chase your own tail.

  Amy Tan

  Dog, Strong, Eye

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• It wasn't only that you didn't see him anymore, meet him anymore. You saw his absence and encountered it as something tangible. His not being there was like the sharply outlined emptiness of a photo with a figure cut out precisely with scissors and now the missing figure is more important, more dominant than all others.

  Pascal Mercier

  Cutting, Missing, Important

  Pascal Mercier (2008). “Night Train to Lisbon: A Novel”, p.157, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The longest journey
  Is the journey inwards.
  Of him who has chosen his destiny,
  Who has started upon his quest
  For the source of his being.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Past, Journey, Destiny

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjold, 1964.

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• What’s life in this nation? Collect emptiness in a household of cornflakes. Transient fuel gobbles attention, the television aches, the truth walks. Scheme worms welcome your corpse, trap clicks and you’re in heaven, bored rigid

  Steve Aylett

  Bored, Heaven, Attention

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• Huizi would say, never look back to the past. Never regret. Even if there is emptiness ahead, never look back.

  Xiaolu Guo

  Regret, Past, Looks

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• There is no emptiness without appearance, and there is no appearance without emptiness. That is what we call the interdependent nature.

  Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

  Buddhist, Appearance

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• "It pleases the Father that ALL fulness" should be there; and therefore there is nothing but emptiness anywhere else.

  William Gadsby

  Christian, Jesus, Father

  "Sermons, fragments of sermons and letters". ed. by J. Gadsby,

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• A life without love, no matter how many other things we have, is an empty, meaningless one.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Matter, Empty, Life Without Love

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• Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.

  Richard J. Foster

  Loneliness, Solitude, Fulfillment

  Richard J. Foster (1995*). “Richard Foster's treasury of Christian discipline”, Jossey-Bass

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• True compassion is undirected & holds no conceptual focus. That kind of genuine, true compassion is only possible after realizing emptiness.

  Tsoknyi Rinpoche

  Compassion, Focus, Mindfulness

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• I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.

  Jack Kerouac

  Dream, Wisdom, Morning

  Jack Kerouac (2011). “On the Road”, p.289, Penguin UK

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• I am an emptiness for Thee to fill; my soul a cavern for Thy sea

  George MacDonald

  Sea, Soul, Caverns

  George MacDonald (1893). “The Poetical Works of George MacDonald (Volumes I and II)”, p.10, Library of Alexandria

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• The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought. That's what we're going to discover again and again and again. Nothing is what we thought. I can say that with great confidence. Emptiness is not what we thought. Neither is mindfulness or fear. Compassion––not what we thought. Love. Buddha nature. Courage. These are code words for things we don't know in our minds, but any of us could experience them. These are words that point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment.

  Pema Chodron

  Fall, Compassion, Mind

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• Often to understand, we have to look into emptiness.

  Michelangelo Antonioni

  Looks

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• One of the manifestations of depression for me is that I lose my will. And I thereby lose my ability to focus. I don't think I'll ever have the day-to-day consistency in my performance that something like This American Life has. If I'm not depressed and I'm on and I can focus and I can think through something hard and without interruption and without existential emptiness that comes from depression, that gives me - not mania. But I exalt. I exalt in not being depressed.

  Rachel Maddow

  Thinking, Giving, Focus

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• God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of him. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it. But if I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to the thought of Him that I was meant to embody, I shall be full of his actuality and find him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere.

  Thomas Merton

  Voice, Able, Spirituality

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.37, New Directions Publishing

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• How fascinating is death, the extinction of life. One moment here and the next gone. The light put out and only the empty bag of the body left.

  Henry Van Dyke

  Life, Death, Light

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• There is an unseen sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness. We are lutes. When the sound box is filled, no music can come forth. When the brain and the belly burn from fasting, every moment a new song rises out of the fire. The mists clear, and a new vitality makes you spring up the steps before you . . .

  Rumi

  Song, Spring, Fire

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• I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.

  Haruki Murakami

  Numbness, Together Again, Feelings

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Sep 16, 2014

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• You are not the one who experiences liberation; you are the clearing, the opening, the emptiness, in which any experience comes and goes, like reflections on the mirror. And you are the mirror, the mirror mind, and not any experienced reflection.

  Ken Wilber

  Reflection, Mirrors, Mind

  "Stages of Meditation". www.patheos.com. June 9, 2014.

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• By affliction He teaches us many precious lessons, which without it we should never learn. By affliction He shows us our emptiness and weakness, draws us to the throne of grace, purifies our affections, weans us from the world, makes us long for heaven.

  J. C. Ryle

  Long, Heaven, Grace

  "Bible Commentary - The Gospel of Mark".

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