Quotes about distance

A collection of quotes on the topic of distant, other, likeness, use.

Best quotes about distance

„Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.“

— T.S. Eliot 20th century English author 1888 - 1965

Preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby (1931)

„Longing is the agony of the nearness of the distant.“

— Martin Heidegger German philosopher 1889 - 1976

„Tell me, O muse, of travellers far and wide“

— Homér Ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

„A nomad I will remain for life,
in love with distant and uncharted places.“

— Isabelle Eberhardt Swiss explorer and author 1877 - 1904

„I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?“

— Ernest Hemingway American author and journalist 1899 - 1961

No source in Hemingway's works has been found. May have originated in a 2000 post to the Usenet group alt.support.depression. link https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/alt.support.depression/wYH4aCNHyp4/_d50yuXTeHsJ
Disputed

„I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country.“

— Charles Darwin, book The Voyage of the Beagle

Source: The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), chapter XXI: "Mauritius To England" (second edition, 1845), pages 499-500 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=512&itemID=F14&viewtype=image
Context: I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye. … And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin.

„I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.“

— Richard Brautigan, book In Watermelon Sugar

Source: In Watermelon Sugar

„The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.“

— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994

„The covers of this book are too far apart.“

— Ambrose Bierce American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist 1842 - 1914

„The distance is nothing when one has a motive.“

— Jane Austen, book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

All quotes about distance

Total 614 quotes distant, filter:

„I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.“

— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890

God, Help, Faith

„Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.“

— Carl Sagan, book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Love, Life, World, Religion

„Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.“

— Margaret Fuller American feminist, poet, author, and activist 1810 - 1850

Religion, Star, Learning, Patience

„Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.“

— H. Jackson Brown, Jr. American writer 1940

Source: P.S. I Love You

Dreams, Disappointment, Motivational, Courageous

„There is a saying that a glass is half empty or half full, depending on how you look at it. Well, we all know that one. But we cannot just say, okay so half full is how we should look at things. No. We have to go even further in our observation and realize that the glass is actually 100 percent full: 50 percent with water and 50 percent with air.“

— Yoko Ono Japanese artist, author, and peace activist 1933

Game Is Not Over - 2005 Oxford Union Address http://www.jeclique.com/onoweb/news-oxfordjune2005.html

Water, Dependency

„And when the Patrician was unhappy, he became very democratic. He found intricate and painful ways of spreading that unhappiness as far as possible.“

— Terry Pratchett, book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Pain, Way

„This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.“

— Jimmy Carter American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981) 1924

World, Music, Feeling, Science

„Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.“

— Louisa May Alcott American novelist 1832 - 1888

As quoted in Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (1923) by Elbert Hubbard, p. 62

Beauty, Faith, Hope

„The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy
But I worry about you
I know it makes no difference
To what you’re going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg
And I worry about you…
-- Distant Early Warning (1984)“

— Neil Peart Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author 1952 - 2020

Rush Lyrics

World

„Intuitive cognition is such that when some things are cognized, of which one inheres in the other, or one is spatially distant from the other, or exists in some relation to the other, immediately in virtue of that non-propositional cognition of those things, it is known if the thing inheres or does not inhere, if it is spatially distant or not, and the same for other true contingent propositions, unless that cognition is flawed or there is some impediment.“

— William of Ockham medieval philosopher and theologian 1285 - 1349

Opera Theologica (1986), edited by Gedeon Gal, Vol. I, p. 31.

„Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.“

— Khalil Gibran Lebanese artist, poet, and writer 1883 - 1931

Children, Cry, Wisdom

„She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.“

— Terry Pratchett English author 1948 - 2015

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Beauty, Way

„The need to go astray, to be destroyed, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth.“

— Georges Bataille French intellectual and literary figure 1897 - 1962

Truth, Passion

„This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some--perhaps many--may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe“

— Jimmy Carter American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981) 1924

World, Hope, Music, Way

„Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant…“

— Rainer Maria Rilke, book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Love, Pain, Solitude, Singing

„I was already almost 30, and by then everyone was talking about the Americans. Picasso was irrelevant. He was history. I found myself in this deep pool, and there were all these figures swimming around, like Rauschenberg and Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein|Lichtenstein]]. I wanted to go where they were. Seeing Pollock and Fontana in Kassel had given me a sense of what it meant to be a modern artist and take risks, but it was a distant admiration because they were a different generation. This was my generation“

— Gerhard Richter German visual artist, born 1932 1932

on the art academy in Düsseldorf
after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Art, History, Sense

„You do not need to seek freedom in some distant land, for it exists within your own body, heart, mind, and soul. Illuminated emancipation, freedom, unalloyed and untainted bliss await you, but you must choose to embark on the Inward Journey to discover it.“

— B.K.S. Iyengar Indian yoga teacher and scholar 1918 - 2014

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p.22

Soul, Freedom, Heart

„Translated: For four years, there were whole square miles of land where murder was obligatory, while it was strictly forbidden half an hour away. Did I say: murder? Of course murder. Soldiers are murderers.“

— Kurt Tucholský German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer 1890 - 1935

Da gab es vier Jahre lang ganze Quadratmeilen Landes, auf denen war der Mord obligatorisch, während er eine halbe Stunde davon entfernt ebenso streng verboten war. Sagte ich: Mord? Natürlich Mord. Soldaten sind Mörder.
From Der bewachte Kriegsschauplatz, published 1931 under the pseudonym Ignaz Wrobel; compare http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldaten_sind_M%C3%B6rder.

„he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers; is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.“

— Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the United States of America 1743 - 1826

Known as the "anti-slavery clause", this section drafted by Thomas Jefferson was removed from the Declaration at the behest of representatives of South Carolina http://alexpeak.com/twr/doi/draft/#ex2.
1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776), Earlier drafts

Life, Death, Men, War

„If we suppose the distance of the fixed stars from the sun to be so great that the diameter of the earth's orbit viewed from them would not subtend a sensible angle, or which amounts to the same, that their annual parallax is quite insensible; it will then follow that a line drawn from the earth in any part of its orbit to a fixed star, will always, as to sense, make the same angle with the plane of the ecliptic, and the place of the star, as seen from the earth, would be the same as seen from the sun placed in the focus of the ellipsis described by the earth in its annual revolution, which place may therefore be called its true or real place.
But if we further suppose that the velocity of the earth in its orbit bears any sensible proportion to the velocity with which light is propagated, it will thence follow that the fixed stars (though removed too far off to be subject to a parallax on account of distance) will nevertheless be liable to an aberration, or a kind of parallax, on account of the relative velocity between light and the earth in its annual motion.
For if we conceive, as before, the true place of any star to be that in which it would appear viewed from the sun, the visible place to a spectator moving along with the earth, will be always different from its true, the star perpetually appearing out of its true place more or less, according as the velocity of the earth in its orbit is greater or less; so that when the earth is in its perihelion, the star will appear farthest distant from its true place, and nearest to it when the earth is in its aphelion; and the apparent distance in the former case will be to that in the latter in the reciprocal proportion of the distances of the earth in its perihelion and its aphelion. When the earth is in any other part of its orbit, its velocity being always in the reciprocal proportion of the perpendicular let fall from the sun to the tangent of the ellipse at that point where the earth is, or in the direct proportion of the perpendicular let fall upon the same tangent from the other focus, it thence follows that the apparent distance of a star from its true place, will be always as the perpendicular let fall from the upper focus upon the tangent of the ellipse. And hence it will be found likewise, that (supposing a plane passing through the star parallel to the earth's orbit) the locus or visible place of the star on that plane will always be in the circumference of a circle, its true place being in that diameter of it which is parallel to the shorter axis of the earth's orbit, in a point that divides that diameter into two parts, bearing the same proportion to each other, as the greatest and least distances of the earth from the sun.“

— James Bradley English astronomer; Astronomer Royal 1693 - 1762

Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence (1832), Demonstration of the Rules relating to the Apparent Motion of the Fixed Stars upon account of the Motion of Light.

Star, Sense, Light, Appearance

„I threw families onto the street in Iraq, only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country, in this tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis. We need to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. They're not people whose names we don't know and cultures we don't understand. The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable. The enemy is CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable. It's the insurance companies who deny us health care when it's profitable. It's the banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not five thousand miles away. They are right here at home.“

— Michael Prysner American anti-war political activist 1983

"Our Real Enemies"

War, People, Health, Family

„To the Youth in Europe and North America,
The recent events in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have convinced me to directly talk to you about them. I am addressing you, [the youth], not because I overlook your parents, rather it is because the future of your nations and countries will be in your hands; and also I find that the sense of quest for truth is more vigorous and attentive in your hearts.
I don’t address your politicians and statesmen either in this writing because I believe that they have consciously separated the route of politics from the path of righteousness and truth.
I would like to talk to you about Islam, particularly the image that is presented to you as Islam. Many attempts have been made over the past two decades, almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its utilization has unfortunately a long record in the political history of the West.
Here, I don’t want to deal with the different phobias with which the Western nations have thus far been indoctrinated. A cursory review of recent critical studies of history would bring home to you the fact that the Western governments’ insincere and hypocritical treatment of other nations and cultures has been censured in new historiographies.
The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period and chagrined at the oppression of people of color and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are deeply ashamed of the bloodsheds wrought in the name of religion between the Catholics and Protestants or in the name of nationality and ethnicity during the First and Second World Wars. This approach is admirable.
By mentioning a fraction of this long list, I don’t want to reproach history; rather I would like you to ask your intellectuals as to why the public conscience in the West awakens and comes to its senses after a delay of several decades or centuries. Why should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not to the current problems? Why is it that attempts are made to prevent public awareness regarding an important issue such as the treatment of Islamic culture and thought?
You know well that humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the “other” have been the common base of all those oppressive profiteers. Now, I would like you to ask yourself why the old policy of spreading “phobia” and hatred has targeted Islam and Muslims with an unprecedented intensity. Why does the power structure in the world want Islamic thought to be marginalized and remain latent? What concepts and values in Islam disturb the programs of the super powers and what interests are safeguarded in the shadow of distorting the image of Islam? Hence, my first request is: Study and research the incentives behind this widespread tarnishing of the image of Islam.
My second request is that in reaction to the flood of prejudgments and disinformation campaigns, try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. The right logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they are frightening you about and want you to keep away from.“

— Ali Khamenei Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader 1939

Message of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei To the Youth in Europe and North America http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2001, Khamenei.ir (January 21, 2015)
2015

War, People, Truth, Youth

„Do we have to be so distant
How can you be so unreal?
What's the reason for hiding and
How this crying make you feel?“

— Mike Oldfield English musician, multi-instrumentalist 1953

Song lyrics, Discovery (1984)

Feeling, Cry

„Only a seaman realises to what great extent an entire ship reflects the personality and ability of one individual, her Commanding Officer. To a landsman, this is not understandable—and sometimes it is even difficult for us to comprehend—but it is so! A ship at sea is a different world in herself, and in consideration of the protracted and distant operations of the fleet units, the Navy must place great power, responsibility and trust in the hands of those leaders chosen for command. In each ship there is one man who, in the hour of emergency or peril at sea, can turn to no other man. There is one who alone is ultimately responsible for the safe navigation, engineering performance, accurate gunfire and morale of the ship. He is the Commanding Officer. He is the ship. This is the most difficult and demanding assignment in the Navy. There is not an instant during his tour as Commanding Officer that he can escape the grasp of command responsibility. His privileges, in view of his obligations, are almost ludicrously small; nevertheless, this is the spur which has given the Navy its great leaders. It is a duty which richly deserves the highest, time-honoured title of the seafaring world—Captain.“

— Joseph Conrad Polish-British writer 1857 - 1924

Command at Sea: the Prestige, Privilege and Burden of Command

World, Understanding, Time, Personality

„As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe as measured from the beginning to the evaporation of the last black hole, life as we know it is only possible for one-thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, of a percent (10^-84). And that's why, for me, the most astonishing wonder of the universe isn't a star or a planet or a galaxy. It isn't a thing at all. It's an instant in time. And that time is now. Humans have walked the earth for just the shortest fraction of that briefest of moments in deep time. But in our 200,000 years on this planet we've made remarkable progress. It was only 2,500 years ago that we believed that the sun was a god and measured its orbit with stone towers built on the top of a hill. Today the language of curiosity is not sun gods, but science. And we have observatories that are almost infinitely more sophisticated than those towers, that can gaze out deep into the universe. And perhaps even more remarkably through theoretical physics and mathematics we can calculate what the universe will look like in the distant future. And we can even make concrete predictions about its end. And I believe that it's only by continuing our exploration of the cosmos and the laws of nature that govern it that we can truly understand ourselves and our place in this universe of wonders.“

— Brian Cox (physicist) English physicist and former musician 1968

Conclusion in Wonders of the Universe - Destiny

Life, God, Law, Star

„What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.“

— Cesare Pavese Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator 1908 - 1950

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

World, Sea

„And also to the alien, who is not of Thy people Israel, but comes from a distant land on account of Thy fame; for hearing of Thy great name and Thy strong hand, and Thine outstretched arm, he comes to this house to pray… do Thou listen in the heavens, the place where Thou dwellest, and perform all that the alien begs of Thee, so that all the peoples of the earth may know Thy name, to fear Thee like Thine own people Israel, and to know that Thy name is proclaimed over this house that I have built.“

— Solomon king of Israel and the son of David -1011 - -931 BC

I Kings 8:41-43 on the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem

People, Fear, Strong, Housing

„Those who receive this privilege therefore, have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place. If he takes this food and does not bring help to his brothers, he is a traitor. Similarly, if any of the young men and women who are given an education by the people of this republic adopt attitudes of superiority, or fail to use their knowledge to help the development of this country, then they are betraying our union.“

— Julius Nyerere Tanzanian politician and writer, first Prime Minister and President of Tanzania 1922 - 1999

On higher education, 1960s. UDSM Alumni Newletter, volume 7. No. 2, November 2007, ISSN 0856 - 8805

Women, Men, People, Education

„Even with all our technological accomplishments and urban sophistication, we consider ourselves blessed, healed in some manner, forgiven, and for a moment transported into some other world, when we catch a passing glimpse of an animal in the wild: a deer in some woodland, a fox crossing a field, a butterfly in its dancing flight southward to its wintering region, a hawk soaring in the distant sky, a hummingbird come into our garden, fireflies signaling to each other in the evening. So we might describe the thousandfold moments when we experience our meetings with the animals in their unrestrained and undomesticated status. Such incidents as these remind us that the universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not of objects to be exploited.“

— Thomas Berry American priest 1914 - 2009

Source: Evening Thoughts, Chapter 3, pp. 37-38

World, Communication, Universe, Winter

„What is love? For the rabble love is a kind of variety, a transient vulgarity; the rabble's conception of love is best found in their obscene ditties, in prostitution and in the foul idioms they use when they are halfway sober, such as "shoving the donkey's foreleg in mud," or "putting dust on the head." My love for her, however, was of a totally different kind. I knew her from ancient times— strange slanted eyes, a narrow, half-open mouth, a subdued quiet voice. She was the embodiment of all my distant, painful memories among which I sought what I was deprived of, what belonged to me but somehow I was denied. Was I deprived forever?“

— Sadegh Hedayat, book The Blind Owl

The Blind Owl

Love, Pain, Memory, Time

„One cannot love anybody without turning away from oneself. However, the crucial question is whether this movement is prompted by the desire to turn toward a positive value, or whether the intention is a radical escape from oneself. “Love” of the second variety is inspired by self-hatred, by hatred of one’s own weakness and misery. The mind is always on the point of departing for distant places. Afraid of seeing itself and its inferiority, it is driven to give itself to the other—not because of his worth, but merely for the sake of his “otherness.” Modern philosophical jargon has found a revealing term for this phenomenon, one of the many modern substitutes for love: “altruism.” This love is not directed at a previously discovered positive value, nor does any such value flash up in the act of loving: there is nothing but the urge to turn away from oneself and to lose oneself in other people’s business. We all know a certain type of man frequently found among socialists, suffragettes, and all people with an ever-ready “social conscience”— the kind of person whose social activity is quite clearly prompted by inability to keep his attention focused on himself, on his own tasks and problems. Looking away from oneself is here mistaken for love! Isn’t it abundantly clear that “altruism,” the interest in “others” and their lives, has nothing at all to do with love? The malicious or envious person also forgets his own interest, even his “preservation.” He only thinks about the other man’s feelings, about the harm and the suffering he inflicts on him. Conversely, there is a form of genuine “self-love” which has nothing at all to do with “egoism.” It is precisely the essential feature of egoism that it does not apprehend the full value of the isolated self. The egoist sees himself only with regard to the others, as a member of society who wishes to possess and acquire more than the others. Selfdirectedness or other-directedness have no essential bearing on the specific quality of love or hatred. These acts are different in themselves, quite independently of their direction.“

— Max Scheler German philosopher 1874 - 1928

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Love, People, Feeling, Question

„At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.“

— Stendhal, book The Charterhouse of Parma

De loin nous ne nous faisons pas d'idée de ce que c'est que l'autorité d'un despote qui connaît de vue tous ses sujets.
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 16

„I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the attraction of the L. R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed. Also many of the older legends are purely 'mythological', and nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of Númenor and the flight of Elendil.“

— John Ronald Reuel Tolkien British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works 1892 - 1973

No. 247: To Colonel Worskett (20 September 1963)
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)

World, Beauty, History, Thinking

„To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.“

— Michael Oakeshott British philosopher 1901 - 1990

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)

Laughter, Perfection

„The idea of a crucified God to me at least is aesthetically appalling, for example. Why not a God who loves earth and life for a change? If we're going to insist upon a superhuman God, then why a distant, tempestuous God 'the father'? Why not a God who has the finest human abilities carried to their fullest; God the superartist, superlover, superartisan or athlete or farmer?“

— Jane Roberts American Writer 1929 - 1984

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 62
Context: I'm taking it for granted here that there is a Source or God, but that our visions of such a vast psychological reality are limited, even shoddy and destructive. The idea of a crucified God to me at least is aesthetically appalling, for example. Why not a God who loves earth and life for a change? If we're going to insist upon a superhuman God, then why a distant, tempestuous God 'the father'? Why not a God who has the finest human abilities carried to their fullest; God the superartist, superlover, superartisan or athlete or farmer? At least such designations would upgrade the conventional ideas of a godhead. And of course Christianity leaves out any goddesses, so that along with Darwinian and Freudian theories religion is not just parochial but 'sexist' as well. And no one ever talks about Christ, the lover of women...

Love, Life, God, Idea

„Love means to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.“

— Czeslaw Milosz Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator 1911 - 2004

"The World": Love (1943), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz
Rescue (1945)
Context: Love means to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills —
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Love, Way

„In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.“

— Miyamoto Musashi Japanese martial artist, writer, artist 1584 - 1645

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book
Context: The gaze should be large and broad. This is the twofold gaze "Perception and Sight". Perception is strong and sight weak.
In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. It is important in strategy to know the enemy's sword and not to be distracted by insignificant movements of his sword. You must study this. The gaze is the same for single combat and for large-scale combat.

„There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.“

— Carl Sagan, book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg
Context: Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

World, Home

„The findings get more disturbing. Perkins found that IQ was by far the biggest predictor of how well people argued, but it predicted only the number of my-side arguments. Smart people make really good lawyer and press secretaries, but they are no better than others at finding reasons on the other side. Perkins concluded that "people invest their IQ in buttressing their own case rather than in exploring the entire issue more fully and evenhandedly.".“

— Jonathan Haidt, book The Righteous Mind

The Righteous Mind (2012)

People

„For a few seconds they looked silently into each other's eyes, and the distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable.“

— Leo Tolstoy, book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

„Sometimes memory tricks you. Sometimes beauty is best when it's distant.“

— David Levithan, book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Beauty, Memory

„The deepest level of worship is praising God inspite of pain, trusting Him during a trial, surrendering
while suffering, and loving Him when He seems distant.“

— Rick Warren Christian religious leader 1954

Love, God, Pain, Suffering

„We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.“

— Carl Sagan, book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

„And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.“

— Rainer Maria Rilke, book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Four (16 July 1903)
Variant: Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. (Translation by Stephen Mitchell)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Context: Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Question

„All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.“

— Brian Tracy American motivational speaker and writer 1944

Source: Personal Success

Women, Men, People, Imagination

„So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope….“

— Thomas Hardy English novelist and poet 1840 - 1928

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Dreams, Hope, Soul, Sun

„Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wave-length of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.“

— Iris Murdoch, book The Message to the Planet

The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 509.

People

„It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from.“

— Colum McCann, book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

„And the great spirit of darkness spread a shroud over me… everything was silent-everything. But upon the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent.“

— Knut Hamsun, book Hunger

Source: Hunger

„Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession…“

— Friedrich Nietzsche German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist 1844 - 1900

The Gay Science (1882)

Love, Beauty

„So I find words I never thought to speak

In streets I never thought I should revisit

When I left my body on a distant shore.“

— T.S. Eliot 20th century English author 1888 - 1965

„And if, in some distant place in the future, we see each other in our new lives, I will smile at you with joy, and remember how we spent a summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love.“

— Nicholas Sparks, book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Smile, Tree, Learning

„They continued to watch each other from across the room, both frozen for a moment by the shadow of distant possibilities.“

— Nicholas Sparks, book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

„Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.“

— Haruki Murakami, book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Feeling, Star, Light

„The seat received him in a loose and distant kind of way, like an aunt who disapproves of the last fifteen years of your life and will therefore furnish you with a basic sherry, but refuses to catch your eye.“

— Douglas Adams, book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Life, Way

„There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action.“

— P.G. Wodehouse English author 1881 - 1975

Joy in the Morning (1947)
Source: Jeeves in the Morning

„Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe.“

— Clifford D. Simak, book Way Station

Source: Way Station

Death, Star, Universe

„Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.“

— Theodore Roosevelt American politician, 26th president of the United States 1858 - 1919

Leadership

„Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood. Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with merry eyes and an open smile. Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.“

— Dean Koontz American author 1945

Smile, Evil

„This is the whole point of technology. It creates an appetite for immortality on the one hand. It threatens universal extinction on the other. Technology is lust removed from nature. - Murray (WN 285)“

— Don DeLillo American novelist, playwright and essayist 1936

Source: White Noise: Text and Criticism

Nature, Universe

„Stay away from people who belittle your ambition, small people do that, but great people make you like to be great!“

— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910

Variant: Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

People

„Expecting anybody else?' Shane asked Eve. 'Your distant cousin Jack the Ripper dropping by too?'

'Screw you, Collins.“

— Rachel Caine American writer 1962

Source: Kiss of Death

„The stars know everything,
So we try to read their minds.
As distant as they are,
We choose to whisper in their presence.“

— Charles Simic American poet 1938

Star, Reading

„It's strange to be so physically close to someone who's so distant“

— Suzanne Collins American television writer and novelist 1962

„In philosophy, as in politics, the longest distance between two points is a straight line.“

— Will Durant American historian, philosopher and writer 1885 - 1981

Source: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

„In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.“

— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Context: Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Love, Beauty, Star

„Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.“

— Jess Walter, book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Memory, Personality

„They had dreams but they called them dreams because they were unrelated to reality, they were a distant unknown, an impossibility, they would never come true.“

— James Frey, Bright Shiny Morning

Source: Bright Shiny Morning

Dreams, Reality

„Whenever you go on a trip to visit foreign lands or distant places, remember that they are all someone's home and backyard.“

— Vera Nazarian American writer 1966

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Home

„When we look up at night and view the stars, everything we see is shinning because of distant nuclear fusion.“

— Carl Sagan, book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Star, Night

„Smiling with pleasure, they went through their memories, not sad, old people's memories, but poetic, youthful ones, those impressions from the very distant past where dream merges with reality, and they laughed softly, rejoicing at something.“

— Leo Tolstoy, book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

People, Pleasure, Youth, Sadness

„The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.“

— John Burroughs American naturalist and essayist 1837 - 1921

„You can't beat women anyhow and that if you are wise or dislike trouble and uproar you don't even try to.“

— William Faulkner American writer 1897 - 1962

Women

„There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?“

— Woody Allen American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician 1935

World, Question, Problem

„The warlock's gaze, on the flames, was remote and distant, as if he were looking back into the past. Simon couldn't help but remember what Magnus had said to him once, about living forever:
Someday you and I will be the only two left.“

— Cassandra Clare, The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Past, Help

„I don’t want to be
one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so
influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant
memory.“

— Cecelia Ahern, book Love, Rosie

Variant: I don’t want to be one of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, so influential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distant memory. I want us to be best friends forever
Source: Love, Rosie

People, Memory, Time

„There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering.“

— John O'Donohue Irish writer, priest and philosopher 1956 - 2008

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Pain, Solitude, Suffering