Fathom Quotes - Page 4

• This rough magic I here abjure and when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book.

  William Shakespeare

  Book, Magic, Sound

  1611 Prospero.The Tempest, act 5, sc.1, l.54-7.

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• I can't seem to fathom that the things important to me are not important to other people as well, and so I come off sounding like a missionary, someone whose job it is to convert rather than listen.

  David Sedaris

  Jobs, People, Important

  "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim". Book by David Sedaris, 2004.

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• And yet many of us do it without families," Nynaeve said. "Without love, without passion beyond our own particular interests. So even while we try to guide the world, we separate ourselves from it.We risk arrogance, Egwene. We always assume we know best, but risk making ourselves unable to fathom the people we claim to serve.

  Robert Jordan

  Passion, People, Risk

  Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson (2011). “Towers of Midnight”, p.312, Macmillan

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• ...our eyes locked in one of those looks that sometimes happen between strangers, when both wordlessly agree that reality contains sinkholes whose depths neither can ever hope to fathom.

  Nicole Krauss

  Eye, Reality, Depth

  Nicole Krauss (2011). “Great House”, p.136, Penguin UK

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• Grow strong, my comrade … that you may stand Unshaken when I fall; that I may know The shattered fragments of my song will come At last to finer melody in you; That I may tell my heart that you begin Where passing I leave off, and fathom more.

  Will Durant

  Song, Strong, Fall

  Will Durant (2012). “Story of Philosophy”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life.

  W. G. Sebald

  Mean, Reality, Understanding

  W. G. Sebald (2016). “The Rings of Saturn”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

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• Dogma is the guardian of mystery. The doctrines are spiritually significant in ways that we cannot fathom.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Doctrine, Way, Dogma

  Flannery O'Connor (1988). “Collected Works”, New York, NY : Library of America : Distributed to the trade in the U.S. and Canada by Viking Press

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• It does not matter that we cannot fathom this mystery. The only real problem comes when we think that we have.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Real, Thinking, Doe

  Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage”, p.133, Open Road Media

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• I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.

  Dodie Smith

  Real, Feelings, Mind

  Dodie Smith (2003). “I Capture the Castle”, p.242, St. Martin's Press

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• For I need this scar over my heart to remind me. Crazy as it sounds, if I can bear the wound on my body, it lessens what I must carry on my soul. How he knew that about me, I cannot fathom.

  Ann Aguirre

  Crazy, Heart, Soul

  Ann Aguirre (2011). “Aftermath”, p.97, Penguin

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• "That's a poor match, Sean Kendrick," says a voice at my elbow. It's the other sister from Fathom & Sons, and she follows my gaze to Puck. "Neither of you are a housewife." I don't look away from Puck. "I think you assume too much, Dory Maud." "You leave nothing to assumption," Dory Maud says. "You swallow her with your eyes. I'm surprised there's any of her left for the rest of us to see."

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Eye, Son, Thinking

  "The Scorpio Races". Book by Maggie Stiefvater, 2011.

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• I wanted to fathom her secrets; I wanted her to come to me and say: "I love you," and if not that, if that was senseless insanity, then...well, what was there to care about? Did I know what I wanted? I was like one demented: all I wanted was to be near her, in the halo of her glory, in her radiance, always, for ever, all my life. I knew nothing more!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Love You, Insanity, Secret

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2007). “The Gambler”, p.103, Modern Library

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• Ambition is a devouring fire, who can poise it? It is a wind, who can fathom it? It is an abyss, who is able to recount the sources and issues thereof?

  Nicolas Caussin

  Ambition, Fire, Wind

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• Every day is like a kid's drawing, offered to you with a strange mix of ceremoniousness and offhand disregard, yours for the keeping. Some of the days are rich and complicated, others inscrutable, others little more than a stray gray mark on a ragged page. Some you manage to hang on to, though your reasons for doing so are often hard to fathom. But most of them you just ball up and throw away.

  Michael Chabon

  Kids, Drawing, Balls

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• It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, where there is true air.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Ocean, Our World, Air

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.3924, Delphi Classics

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• Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  God, Men, Lord

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1873). “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.318

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• Every mile marker can be met with some measure of trepidation, in a race or in life. Am I on target? Do I have what it takes to finish strong? Am I taking care to stay nourished so I can endure? Is my training proving to be sufficient? Am I prepared for the hills? It is impossible to fathom the full distance, so we make our way to the next mile marker, and the next, checking in with ourselves as we go.

  Kristin Armstrong

  Strong, Distance, Race

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• A theologian should be thoroughly in possession of the basis and source of faith--that is to say, the Holy Scriptures. Armed with this knowledge it was that I confounded and silenced all my adversaries; for they seek not to fathom and understand the Scriptures; they run them over negligently and drowsily; they speak, they write, they teach, according to the suggestion of their heedless imaginations.

  Martin Luther

  Running, Writing, Imagination

  Martin Luther (2017). “Martin Luther's Table Talk”, p.80, Gideon House Books

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• The human mind may know God, and learn of God, though it has no terms by which to explain Him; it may think of Him as Absolute, as Infinite, as Personal, while it may never in this life be able to fathom the full meaning of these sublime ideas.

  George C. Lorimer

  Thinking, Ideas, Mind

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert (p. 267), 1895.

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• Thought engenders thought. Place one idea on paper, another will follow it, and still another, until you have written a page; you cannot fathom your mind. There is a well of thought which has no bottom; the more you draw from it, the more clear and fruitful it will be.

  George Augustus Henry Sala

  Ideas, Mind, Paper

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• The real essence, the internal qualities, and constitution of even the meanest object, is hid from our view; something there is inevery drop of water, every grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding to fathom or comprehend. But it is evidentthat we are influenced by false principles to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know nothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.

  George Berkeley

  Real, Thinking, Views

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• It's hard to speculate as a human about the afterlife because you're not in it. And it's probably as wild and wacky as you could imagine. The idea that people have figured it out, I'm not sure if I can fathom that.

  Gus Van Sant

  Ideas, Afterlife, People

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• I love the sea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of shingle sucked anew.

  Margaret E. Barber

  Ocean, Sea, Shingles

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• Sometimes the longer you are inside a prison, the harder it is to fathom what is possible beyond its walls.

  Suki Kim

  Wall, Sometimes, Prison

  Suki Kim (2014). “Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite”, p.44, Crown

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• While she could hardly fathom what had just happened to her that night, she reached some conclusions before she fell asleep, certain things now made perfect sense; Moon River didn't sound so syrupy, mistletoe wasn't such a bad idea, and perhaps dating was not such a frivolous waste of time after all.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Moon, Night, Ideas

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