Quotes about depth
page 2

“A minimum of unconsciousness is necessary if one wants to stay inside history. To act is one thing; to know one is acting is another. When lucidity invests the action, insinuates itself into it, action is undone, and with it, prejudice, whose function consists, precisely, in subordinating, in enslaving consciousness to action. The man who unmasks his fictions renounces his own resources and, in a sense, himself. Consequently, he will accept other fictions which will deny him, since they will not have cropped up from his own depths. No man concerned with his equilibrium may exceed a certain degree of lucidity and analysis.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The Temptation to Exist (1956)

History, Sense

“As noble Art has survived noble nature, so too she marches ahead of it, fashioning and awakening by her inspiration. Before Truth sends her triumphant light into the depths of the heart, imagination catches its rays, and the peaks of humanity will be glowing when humid night still lingers in the valleys.”

Friedrich Schiller book On the Aesthetic Education of Man

Letter 9
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

Truth, Art, Imagination, Fashion

“The little engine labors and grows, performs more and more involved operations, becomes sensitive to ever subtler influences and now there manifests itself in the fully developed being — Man — a desire mysterious, inscrutable and irresistible: to imitate nature, to create, to work himself the wonders he perceives.
Inspired to this task he searches, discovers and invents, designs and constructs, and covers with monuments of beauty, grandeur and awe, the star of his birth. He descends into the bowels of the globe to bring forth its hidden treasures and to unlock its immense imprisoned energies for his use. He invades the dark depths of the ocean and the azure regions of the sky. He peers in the innermost nooks and recesses of molecular structure and lays bare to his gaze worlds infinitely remote. He subdues and puts to his service the fierce, devastating spark of Prometheus, the titanic forces of the waterfall, the wind and the tide. He tames the thundering bolt of Jove and annihilates time and space. He makes the great Sun itself his obedient toiling slave. Such is his power and might that the heavens reverberate and the whole earth trembles by the mere sound of his voice.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

World, Beauty, Search, Star

“There are two fundamentally different ways for the strong to bend down to the weak, for the rich to help the poor, for the more perfect life to help the “less perfect.” This action can be motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one’s own life and existence. All this unites into the clear awareness that one is rich enough to share one’s being and possessions. Love, sacrifice, help, the descent to the small and the weak, here spring from a spontaneous overflow of force, accompanied by bliss and deep inner calm. Compared to this natural readiness for love and sacrifice, all specific “egoism,” the concern for oneself and one’s interest, and even the instinct of “self-preservation” are signs of a blocked and weakened life. Life is essentially expansion, development, growth in plenitude, and not “self-preservation,” as a false doctrine has it. Development, expansion, and growth are not epiphenomena of mere preservative forces and cannot be reduced to the preservation of the “better adapted.” … There is a form of sacrifice which is a free renunciation of one’s own vital abundance, a beautiful and natural overflow of one’s forces. Every living being has a natural instinct of sympathy for other living beings, which increases with their proximity and similarity to himself. Thus we sacrifice ourselves for beings with whom we feel united and solidary, in contrast to everything “dead.” This sacrificial impulse is by no means a later acquisition of life, derived from originally egoistic urges. It is an original component of life and precedes all those particular “aims” and “goals” which calculation, intelligence, and reflection impose upon it later. We have an urge to sacrifice before we ever know why, for what, and for whom! Jesus’ view of nature and life, which sometimes shines through his speeches and parables in fragments and hidden allusions, shows quite clearly that he understood this fact. When he tells us not to worry about eating and drinking, it is not because he is indifferent to life and its preservation, but because he sees also a vital weakness in all “worrying” about the next day, in all concentration on one’s own physical well-being. … all voluntary concentration on one’s own bodily wellbeing, all worry and anxiety, hampers rather than furthers the creative force which instinctively and beneficently governs all life. … This kind of indifference to the external means of life (food, clothing, etc.) is not a sign of indifference to life and its value, but rather of a profound and secret confidence in life’s own vigor and of an inner security from the mechanical accidents which may befall it. A gay, light, bold, knightly indifference to external circumstances, drawn from the depth of life itself—that is the feeling which inspires these words! Egoism and fear of death are signs of a declining, sick, and broken life. …
This attitude is completely different from that of recent modern realism in art and literature, the exposure of social misery, the description of little people, the wallowing in the morbid—a typical ressentiment phenomenon. Those people saw something bug-like in everything that lives, whereas Francis sees the holiness of “life” even in a bug.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 88-92

Love, Life, Death, People

“I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (27 September 1938), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 372.
Prime Minister
Context: I would not hesitate to pay even a third visit to Germany, if I thought it would do any good... I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination, life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living: but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake.

World, Fear, Peace, Feeling

“To understand life, and love it to its depths in a living being, that is the being's task, and that his masterpiece”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face
Context: To understand life, and love it to its depths in a living being, that is the being's task, and that his masterpiece; and each of us can hardly occupy his time so greatly as with one other; we have only one true neighbor down here.

Love, Life, Understanding

“Where words come out from the depth of truth”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912) Context: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Truth

“Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

The Lover's Tale (1879), line 466

Love

“I am alone in my monotonous country,
While all those around me live in the idolatry
Of a mirror reflecting in its depths serene
Herodiade, whose gaze is diamond keen …”

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) French Symbolist poet

Hérodiade.
Hérodiade (1898)
Context: I am alone in my monotonous country,
While all those around me live in the idolatry
Of a mirror reflecting in its depths serene
Herodiade, whose gaze is diamond keen...
O final enchantment! yes, I sense it, I am alone.

Country

“The woman from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr — smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: The woman from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr — smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile. She loved the sky, the light, which the unformed little being would love some day. She loved the chilly dawn, the sultry noontime, the dreamy evening. The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. Starting at the dark bottom he would ascend the ladder and begin life over again, life, the only paradise there is, the bouquet of nature. He would make beauty beautiful. He would make eternity over again with his voice and his song. And clasping the new-born infant close, she looked at all the sunlight she had given the world. Her arms quivered like wings. She dreamed in words of fondling. She fascinated all the passersby that looked at her. And the setting sun bathed her neck and head in a rosy reflection. She was like a great rose that opens its heart to the whole world.

Smile, Heart

“For in the depth of every serious doubt and every despair of truth, the passion for truth is still at work. Don’t give in too quickly to those who want to alleviate your anxiety about truth. Don’t be seduced into a truth which is not really your truth, even if the seducer is your church, or your party, or your parental tradition. Go with Pilate, if you cannot go with Jesus; but go in seriousness with him!”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Chap. 8: "What Is Truth?"
The New Being (1955)
Context: Where else, besides in scholarly work, should we look for truth? There are many in our period, young and old, primitive and sophisticated, practical and scientific, who accept this answer without hesitation. For them scholarly truth is truth altogether. Poetry may give beauty, but it certainly does not give truth. Ethics may help us to a good life, but it cannot help us to truth. Religion may produce deep emotions, but it should not claim to have truth. Only science gives us truth. It gives us new insights into the way nature works, into the texture of human history, into the hidden things of the human mind. It gives a feeling of joy, inferior to no other joy. He who has experienced this transition from darkness, or dimness, to the sharp light of knowledge will always praise scientific truth and understanding and say with some great medieval theologians, that the principles through which we know our world are the eternal divine light in our souls. And yet, when we ask those who have finished their studies in our colleges and universities whether they have found there a truth which is relevant to their lives they will answer with hesitation. Some will say that they have lost what they had of relevant truth; others will say that they don’t care for such a truth because life goes on from day to day without it. Others will tell you of a person, a book, an event outside their studies which gave them the feeling of a truth that matters. But they all will agree that it is not the scholarly work which can give truth relevant for our life.
Where else, then, can we get it? "Nowhere," Pilate answers in his talk with Jesus. "What is truth?" he asks, expressing in these three words his own and his contemporaries’ despair of truth, expressing also the despair of truth in millions of our contemporaries, in schools and studios, in business and professions. In all of us, open or hidden, admitted or repressed, the despair of truth is a permanent threat. We are children of our period as Pilate was. Both are periods of disintegration, of a world-wide loss of values and meanings. Nobody can separate himself completely from this reality, and nobody should even try. Let me do something unusual from a Christian standpoint, namely, to express praise of Pilate—not the unjust judge, but the cynic and sceptic; and of all those amongst us in whom Pilate’s question is alive. For in the depth of every serious doubt and every despair of truth, the passion for truth is still at work. Don’t give in too quickly to those who want to alleviate your anxiety about truth. Don’t be seduced into a truth which is not really your truth, even if the seducer is your church, or your party, or your parental tradition. Go with Pilate, if you cannot go with Jesus; but go in seriousness with him!

Truth, Parent, Passion, Despair

“I see myself immersed in the depths of human existence and standing in the face of the ineffable mystery of the world and of all that is. And in that situation, I am made poignantly and burningly aware that the world cannot be self-sufficient, that there is hidden in some still greater depth a mysterious, transcendent meaning. This meaning is called God. Men have not been able to find a loftier name, although they have abused it to the extent of making it almost unutterable.”

Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) Russian philosopher

As translated in In Love with Eternity : Philosophical Essays and Fragments (2005) by Richard Schain, p. 47
Dream and Reality (1949)
Context: I see myself immersed in the depths of human existence and standing in the face of the ineffable mystery of the world and of all that is. And in that situation, I am made poignantly and burningly aware that the world cannot be self-sufficient, that there is hidden in some still greater depth a mysterious, transcendent meaning. This meaning is called God. Men have not been able to find a loftier name, although they have abused it to the extent of making it almost unutterable. God can be denied only on the surface; but he cannot be denied where human experience reaches down beneath the surface of flat, vapid, commonplace existence.

Men, God, World

“We dream of travels throughout the universe: is not the universe within us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 16
Variant translations:
We dream of a journey through the universe. But is the universe then not in us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. Inward goes the secret path. Eternity with its worlds, the past and the future, is in us or nowhere.
As translated in "Bildung in Early German Romanticism" by Frederick C. Beiser, in Philosophers on Education : Historical Perspectives (1998) by Amélie Rorty, p. 294
We dream of journeys through the cosmos — Is the cosmos not then in us? We do not know the depths of our own spirit. — The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, is eternity with its worlds — the past and the future.
Blüthenstaub (1798)
Context: Imagination places the future world for us either above or below or in reincarnation. We dream of travels throughout the universe: is not the universe within us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.

World, Dreams, Travel, Universe

“God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Atheism; in the original archaic English this read: I HAD rather beleeve all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, then that this universall Frame, is without a Minde. And therefore, God never wrought Miracle, to convince Atheisme, because his Ordinary Works convince it. It is true, that a little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.
Essays (1625)
Context: I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore, God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

Men, God, Religion

“Up to now the victories of justice over injustice and of equality over inequality have been won by instinct and the simple force of things, but the final triumph of our social nature will be due to our reason, or else we shall fall back into feudal chaos. Either this is reserved for our intelligence, or this depth of poverty for our indignity.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

What is Property? (1840)

Intelligence, Justice, Victory, Nature

“I am impressed by what I read, by the depth of his ideas, of his message. He speaks about peace from a very original and unique perspective. We are used to hearing speeches about peace. We usually tend to leave peace in the hands of governments or political organizations. Prem Rawat speaks about peace from a different perspective—more precise, more human—and he stresses the significance of each human being in the pursuit of world peace. I find great merit in his message.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Dr. Díaz, Vice-Rector. Salamanca University. Salamanca, Spain. June 2003
About, 2000s

World, Idea, Peace, Reading

“No one can advise or help you — no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter One (17 February 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

Help, Heart

“From my early youth, since I attained the age of puberty before I was twenty, until the present time when I am over fifty, I have ever recklessly launched out into the midst of these ocean depths, I have ever bravely embarked on this open sea, throwing aside all craven caution; I have poked into every dark recess, I have made an assault on every problem, I have plunged into every abyss, I have scrutinized the creed of every sect, I have tried to lay bare the inmost doctrines of every community. All this have I done that I might 68 distinguish between true and false, between sound tradition and heretical innovation. Whenever I meet one of the Batiniyah, I like to study his creed; whenever I meet one of the Zahiriyah, I want to know the essentials of his belief. If it is a philosopher, I try to become acquainted with the essence of his philosophy; if a scholastic theologian I busy myself in examining his theological reasoning; if a Sufi, I yearn to fathom the secret of his mysticism; if an ascetic (muta'ahhid) , I investigate the basis of his ascetic practices; if one ofthe Zanadiqah or Mu'attilah, I look beneath the surface to discover the reasons for his bold adoption of such a creed.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307, p: 20-21

Study, Time, Business, Communication

“"If you stand behind a wall, you woudn't be able to see through it so as when you distance yourself from a pit you can't determine it's depth Just get there".”

Dr. Manuel

“Wonderful is the depth of Thy oracles, whose surface is before us, inviting the little ones; and yet wonderful is the depth, O my God, wonderful is the depth. It is awe to look into it; and awe of honour, and a tremor of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehemently. Oh, if Thou wouldest slay them with Thy two-edged sword, that they be not its enemies! For thus do I love, that they should be slain unto themselves that they may live unto Thee.”

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

Source: Confessions (c. 397), XII, 14

God, Hate, Love

“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Introduction

Teachers, Truth, Help, Sense

“That was the thing about guys, though: Sometimes, they had the emotional depth of a flea.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Twisted

Guy

“There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

Art, Business, Time

“The coldest depth of Hell is reserved for people who abandon kittens.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday

People, Hell

“Maybe a person's world can grow bigger in all the right ways, not too wide that it becomes shallow, just large enough to preserve its depth.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Fortunes of Indigo Skye

World, Way, Personality

“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Variant: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

love, Cute, Romantic, Wedding

“But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into the depths of confusion you didn't know existed.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Source: Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

People, Intelligence, Knowledge

“What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Strength to Love

Source: Strength to Love

Time, Personality

“There's a certain class of people who will do you in and then remain completely mystified by the depth of your pain.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: E is for Evidence

Pain, People

“I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life.”

Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) German film director, photographer, actress and dancer

Life, Feeling, Heart

“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Feeling

“To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Women, Hostility, Silence

“To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.

(, 8 September 1935)”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1, 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist

Life, Personality

“Even friends need private spaces, if only within the depths of their own souls, where no one else is allowed to intrude.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Simply Magic

Soul

“Adults forget the depths of languor into which the adolescent mind decends with ease. They are prone to undervalue the mental growth that occurs during daydreaming and aimless wandering”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Forgetting

“We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: By Art Koroma, from page 256 of Holy Axiom Truth Exposed... the Bible Is a Myth (2014) note: It appears President Barack Obama started this misattribution. I can find no reference to this quote on the Internet prior to his May 15, 2016 commencement address at Rutgers State University. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/15/remarks-president-commencement-address-rutgers-state-university-new

Feeling, Courage, Question

“the depth of a person's character is not measured by his or her physical strength, but by the depth of his or her nobility.”

Frank E. Peretti (1951) American writer

Personality

“Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Imagination, Freedom

“All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths.”

Kiran Desai book The Inheritance of Loss

Source: The Inheritance of Loss

Color, Mountain, Water

“… Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive - when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

Feeling, Sincerity

“I saw endless depths of brown, the depths I'd fallen into so many times. No red rings.
Dimitri… was not a Strigoi.
And he was weeping.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Time

“Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

Religion, Happiness

“Literature as a whole is not an aggregate of exhibits with red and blue ribbons attached to them, like a cat-show, but the range of articulate human imagination as it extends from the height of imaginative heaven to the depth of imaginative hell.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: The Educated Imagination

Imagination, Cats, Literature, Hell

“A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Beauty, Nature

“… our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Literature, Understanding, Dependency

“The real wonders of life lie in the depths. Exploring the depths for truths is the real wonder which the child and the artist know: magic and power lie in truth.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947

Life, Truth, Lie

“Such was a poet and shall be and is
-who'll solve the depths of horror to defend a sunbeam's architecture with his life: and carve immortal jungles of despair to hold a mountain's heartbeat in his hand.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Life, Mountain, Despair

“It was a lone voice in the middle of the ocean, but it was heard at great depth and great distance.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

“In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: Letters of Sigmund Freud, 1873-1939

Men, Help, Heart

“Forest, I fear you! In my ruined heart your roaring wakens the same agony as in cathedrals when the organ moans and from the depths I hear that I am damned.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Fear, Heart

“And what colour do you suppose the inner depths of your soul are, Will Herondale?'
'Mauve,' said Will.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Soul

“You'll find as you go through life that great depth and smoldering sensuality don't always win.”

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

Life

“I have a head for heights it's true, but no stomach for the depths. Strange then to have plumbed so many.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

“Somewhere in the depths of solitude, beyond wilderness and freedom, lay the trap of madness.”

Edward Abbey book The Monkey Wrench Gang

Source: The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

Solitude, Freedom, Madness

“The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Truth, Fear, Light, Passion

“Perhaps the depth of love can be calibrated by the number of different selves that are actively involved in a given relationship.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact

Love

“Beautiful women rarely possess sufficient depth of character to survive without their pretty feathers.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Women, Beauty

“I was just struggling with my inner vachette and pondering the depths of my own inhumanity.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“Without commitment, you cannot have depth in anything, whether it's a relationship, a business or a hobby.”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Business

“I yearn to be a woman of more depth, but I'm not so fond of the path I'd need to follow to get there.”

Jen Lancaster (1967) American writer

Source: Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me?

“I don't have a method of stepping into the depths of your heart without getting it dirty." -Kuchiki Rukia”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Heart

“You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Life

“To try to understand another human being, to grapple for his ultimate depths, that is the most dangerous of human endeavors.”

Irving Stone book The Agony and the Ecstasy

Source: The Agony and the Ecstasy

Understanding

“The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it… I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Feeling, Time

“It is always from the depths of its impotence that each power center draws its power, hence their extreme maliciousness, and vanity”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

Source: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Drawing

“So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed.
The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths.
Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“If we have the opportunity to be generous with our hearts, ourselves, we have no idea of the depth and breadth of love's reach.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

Love, Idea, Heart

“There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion
that if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilled on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Life, Secret, Water, Chance

“Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: I is for Innocent

Heart

“Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Goodbye, Love, Parting

“If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 193

World, Courage, Question

“But words are vain; reject them all—
They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
The voiceless longing of my heart.”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

Source: Phantastes

Heart, Parting

“The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:
"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Beauty, Time

“Better let it all alone in the depths of her heart and the depths of the sea.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Popular Girl

Heart, Sea

“What really holds their marriage together are mutual respect of an awesome depth, a shared sense of humor, faith that they were brought together by a force greater than themselves, and a love so unwavering and pure that it is sacred.”

Dean Koontz book Forever Odd

Source: Forever Odd

Love, Marriage, Faith, Sense

“The silence in the room had width, height, depth, mass and substance.”

Maud Hart Lovelace book Betsy in Spite of Herself

Source: Betsy in Spite of Herself

Silence

“The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

World

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Fear

“But if we are truly happy inside, then age brings with it a maturity, a depth, and a power that only magnifies our radiance.”

David Deida (1958) American writer

Source: Intimate Communion

Age, Happiness

“He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo.
Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic.
Nothing is more sublime.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“That's how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness.”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni book Sister of My Heart

Source: Sister of My Heart

Heart, Happiness

“I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

Love, Hate, Drawing

“we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

World, Courage, Question

“So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth?”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Context: So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth? That is what keeps preying on my mind, you see, and then one feels imprisoned by poverty, barred from taking part in this or that project and all sorts of necessities are out of one's reach. As a result one cannot rid oneself of melancholy, one feels emptiness where there might have been friendship and sublime and genuine affection, and one feels dreadful disappointment gnawing at one's spiritual energy, fate seems to stand in the way of affection or one feels a wave of disgust welling up inside. And then one says “How long, my God!”

Unfaithfulness, Faith, Way, Question

“No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I don’t see—what I don’t fear!”

Henry James book The Turn of the Screw

Source: The Turn of the Screw

Fear

“The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution - this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Life, Soul, Time

“… to gaze into the face of another is to gaze into the depth and entirety of his life.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Life

“Maybe that's what you got when you stood over your grief, facing it finally. A sense of its depths, its area, the distance across, and the way over or around it, whichever you chose in the end.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Way, Sense

“Give me your hand
out of the depths
sown by your sorrows.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

“If we develop in-depth knowledge it will enable us to give our best to others and help to make a better world.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 152
Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
Context: THINK BIG means opening our horizons, reaching for new possibilities in our lives, being open to whatever God has in store for us on the road ahead.
T=TALENT : If you recognize your talents, use them appropriately, and choose a field that uses those talents, you will rise to the top of your field.
H=HONEST : If we live by the rule of honesty and accept our problems, we can go far down the road of achievement.
I=INSIGHT : If we observe and reflect and commit ourselves to giving our best, we will come out on top.
N=NICE : If we are nice to others, other respond to us in the same way, and we can give our best for each other.
K=KNOWLEDGE : If we make every attempt to increase our knowledge in order to use it for human go, it will make a difference in us and in our world.
B=BOOKS : If we commit ourselves to reading thus increasing our knowledge, only God limits how far we can go in this world.
I=IN-DEPTH LEARNING : If we develop in-depth knowledge, it will enable us to give our best to others and help to make a better world.
G=GOD : If we acknowledge our need for God, he will help us.

World, Knowledge, Help