“But if nothing does as well as something about which nothing can be said, it vanishes.”
Simon Blackburn (1944) British academic philosopher
Source: Think (1999), Chapter Five, God, p. 173
The Wrench (1978)
Context: Nothing can be said: nothing sure, nothing probable, nothing honest. Better to err through omission than through commission: better to refrain from steering the fate of others, since it is already so difficult to navigate one's own.
“But if nothing does as well as something about which nothing can be said, it vanishes.”
Simon Blackburn (1944) British academic philosopher
Source: Think (1999), Chapter Five, God, p. 173
“Gone.
Vanished.
Nothing left.
Nothing said.”
Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed
Source: And the Mountains Echoed
“Nothing can come of nothing.”
Lear, Act I, scene i.
Variant: Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
Source: King Lear (1605–6)
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
said the Master.
Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 109
“Nothing can be produced out of nothing.”
Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers
Diogenes of Apollonia, 2.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 9: Uncategorized philosophers and Skeptics
“Nothing can be produced from nothing.”
Nil posse creari
de nihilo<!--nilo?-->.
Lucretius (-94–-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher
Nil posse creari
de nihilo.
Book I, lines 156–157 (tr. Munro)
Variant translations:
Nothing can be created from nothing.
Nothing can be created out of nothing.
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
“Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.”
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV, 4
“The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist.”
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Letter to A.S. Suvorin (November 25, 1892)
Letters