Phantoms Quotes - Page 8

• We are but phantoms ... and the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud-shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights.

  H. G. Wells

  Clouds, Light, Wind

  H. G. Wells (2015). “The Country of the Blind: H. G. Wells Collections”, p.266, 谷月社

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• Robert Duvall taught me years ago. He said, "You know theatre is not real. I don't like plays." You know, he doesn't like plays. And I agree with him in certain ways, you know. They can be fun. I don't mind going to see them. I went and saw Phantom of the Opera. I thought hey, that's cool. Look at the mask and all that.

  Billy Bob Thornton

  Fun, Real, Years

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

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• Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation.

  Henry Clay

  Rights, Sea, Land

  Henry Clay (1857). “The speeches of Henry Clay”, p.20

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• How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty.

  John Ruskin

  Men, Liberty, Pursuit

  John Ruskin (1861). “Selections from the writings of John Ruskin ... With a portrait”, p.334

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• You know, without my telling you, how sometimes a word or name eludes you, and you seek it through running ghosts of shadow -- leaping at it, lying in wait for it to spring upon it, spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, you hear it, see it flash among the branches, and scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it.

  Conrad Aiken

  Running, Lying, Spring

  Conrad Aiken (1970). “Collected poems”, Oxford Univ Pr

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• Science robs men of wisdom and usually converts them into phantom beings loaded up with facts.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Men, Facts, Loaded

  Collected in Essays and Soliloquies (translated by J E Crawford Flitch, 1925).

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• Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?

  Haven Kimmel

  Ruins, Infinity, Possibility

  Haven Kimmel (2002). “The Solace of Leaving Early: A Novel”, p.35, Anchor

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• It was as if they had leapt over the arduous cavalry of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Couple, Passion, Heart

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• The one thing I can tell you is that you wont survive for yourself. I know because I would never have come this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Heart, Together, Would Be

  Cormac McCarthy (2007). “The Road”, p.49, Vintage

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• You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path thats clear. I will choose Freewill.

  Neil Peart

  Fear, Kindness, Voice

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• All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely pre-ambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasent life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was - a woman.

  Washington Irving

  Lonely, Night, Men

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• Solitude is indeed dangerous for a working intelligence. We need to have around us people who think and speak. When we are alone for a long time we people the void with phantoms

  Guy de Maupassant

  Thinking, People, Long

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• When we die, as when the scenes have been fixed on to celluloid and the scenery is pulled down and burnt — we are phantoms in the memories of our descendants. Then we are ghosts, my dear, then we are myths. But still we are together. We are the past together, we are a distant past. Beneath the dome of the mysterious stars, I still hear your voice.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Stars, Memories, Past

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “Maya”, p.158, Hachette UK

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• Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.

  Iris Murdoch

  Hero, Divorce, Fighting

  Iris Murdoch (2001). “The Sea, The Sea”, p.296, Penguin

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• Because one day I'll leave you a phantom to lead you in the summer to join the black parade.

  Gerard Way

  Summer, Black, One Day

  "Song: "Welcome to the Black Parade"". 2006.

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• There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.

  William George Jordan

  Simple, Our World, Escaping

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• . . . Action always happens in the present, because it is an expression of the body, which can only exist in the here and now. But the mind is like a phantom that lives only in the past or future. It's only power over you is to draw your attention our of the present.

  Dan Millman

  Past, Expression, Over You

  Dan Millman (2000). “Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives”, p.164, H J Kramer

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• Demon. Gremlin. Poltergeist. Ghost. Phantom. Spirit. Shadow. Ghoul. Devil. People are afraid of them, so they relegate their existence to stories, volumes of books that can be closed and put on the shelf or left behind at a bed and breakfast; they clench their eyes shut, so they will see no evil. But trust me when I tell you that the zebra is real. Somewhere, the zebra is dancing.

  Garth Stein

  Zebras, Real, Book

  Garth Stein (2008). “The Art of Racing in the Rain”, Harper

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• Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused!

  Charles Dickens

  Christian, Regret, Mean

  Charles Dickens (1997). “Best Ghost Stories”, p.71, Wordsworth Editions

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• Sit, Phantom!" Ivy cooed. "On your bottom!" "Oh, for goodness' sake!" Gabriel put down his book and pointed a longer finger at Phantom. "Sit," he commanded in a deep voice. Phantom looked sheepish and sank straight to the floor. Ivy scowled in frustration. "I've been trying to get him to do that all day! What is it with dogs and male authority?

  Alexandra Adornetto

  Dog, Book, Frustration

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• A microscopic phantom of the universe; this is all that we are able to be.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Philosophical, Able, Universe

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• There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.

  Tahir Shah

  Fear, Men, Bullets

  Tahir Shah (2013). “House of the Tiger King, Dyslexic edition”, p.9, Lulu.com

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• This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:
  
  Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
  Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
  Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.
  
  So is all conditioned existence to be seen.

  Gautama Buddha

  Summer, Dream, Clouds

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• Perhaps already I am dead, And these perhaps are phantoms vain; - These motley phantasies that pass At night through my disordered brain. Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes, Old faded gods, this brain is full; Who, for their most unholy rites, Have chosen a dead poet's skull.

  Heinrich Heine

  Night, Skulls, Brain

  Heinrich Heine (1866). “Pictures of travel”, p.173

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• Then all at once in late August's heat, tall leafless stalks crowned with iridescent pink and purple blossoms burst from the purgatory in the earth. This arcane act of nature, though perceived by us as ordinary, is a manifestation of Maya's phantom play, the great immensity expressed in every way. My garden is the universe. I am the universe. I am my garden. All things are the same.

  Duane Michals

  Garden, Purple, August

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