“The past cannot survive in your presence. It can only survive in your absence.”
Source: The Power of Now (1997), p. 76
“Absence is the preferable option when your presence has no meaning.”
1981
Last update Oct. 14, 2023.
History
Related quotes
Amicus Redivivus.
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
“Hell […] is the absence of God and the presence of Time.”
Glen Duncan
book
I, Lucifer
Source: I, Lucifer
“Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs”
Edsger W. Dijkstra
(1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist
Dijkstra (1969) J.N. Buxton and B. Randell, eds, Software Engineering Techniques, April 1970, p. 16. Report on a conference sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, Rome, Italy, 27–31 October 1969. http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1969.PDF Possibly the earliest documented use of the famous quote.
1960s
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
In a 1955 response to an accusation that he was "disturbing the peace" by his activism during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, as quoted in Let the Trumpet Sound : A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr (1982) by Stephen B. Oates
1950s
“True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice.”
Jane Addams
(1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker