“I save myself in a church. Dark, empty. Lights flickering before icons. One sings everything that one has sung before in the past. Some black figures - and the heart is heavy. The tears take one's breath away and the past rises up again. Home.... in Peter's office [Marianne's brother, governor of Kovno Province, Lithuania], my entire soul starts to ache for him, for that battle for everything that is sweet and good, which is called Russian life. Empty, empty in the house, no one. Whoever comes - doesn't get his fill of him. And then such a heated rush of love rips out of the [visitor's] heart, begging one's pardon and forgetting the trouble behind, that the whole house swells.”

“Dark and empty was the place to which I’d come
Cold and silent was the house my name was on
Nine rooms — and a tomb in every one”

“Emptying the ashtrays was very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled ‘the past,’ and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.”

“"Grant me, ye gods, but one certainty," runs Parmenides' prayer, "and if it be but a log's breadth on which to lie. on which to ride upon the sea of uncertainty. Take away everything that comes-to-be, everything lush, colorful, blossoming, illusory, everything that charms and is alive. Take all these for yourselves and grant me but the one and only, poor empty certainty.””

“A home filled with nothing but yourself. It's heavy, that lightness. It's crushing, that emptiness.”

“Socrates did not stop with a philosophical consideration of mankind; he addressed himself to each one individually, wrested everything from him, and sent him away empty-handed.”

“I found them all drunk, I found no one among them athirst in his heart. And my soul was grieved for the sons of men, for they are blind in their minds and do not see that empty they have come into the world and that empty they are destined to come forth from the world.”

“My heart is empty & my life has no value anymore. Each moment a thousand tears.”

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form" states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.”

“If emptiness is endless, then everything rests in emptiness.”