#absence

You’re lost in your own world, in the things that happen there, and you’ve locked all the doors. Sometimes I look at you sleeping. I wake up and look at you and I feel closer to you when you’re like that, unguarded, than when you’re awake. When you’re awake you’re like someone with her eyes closed, watching a movie on the inside of your eyelids. I can’t reach you anymore. Once upon a time I could, but not now, and not for a long time. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#great-house #loneliness #nicole-krauss #movies

Most theists are deists most of the time, in practice if not in theory. They practice the absence of God instead of the presence of God. ↗

— Peter Kreeft

#catholicism #christianity #deism #deist #god

Every one knows, that the mind will not be kept from contemplating what it loves in the midst of crowds and business. Hence come those frequent absences, so observable in conversation; for whilst the body is confined to present company, the mind is flown to that which it delights in. ↗

— Mary Astell

#body #business #come #company #confined

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. ↗

— Rollo May

#absence #ahead #capacity #despair #move

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#actions #happiness #intended #pain #pleasure

For many Americans, including many who are employed, going to the doctor when they fall ill or become injured may not be an option because of the absence of health insurance. ↗

— Ben Nelson

#because #become #doctor #employed #fall

Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life. ↗

— Jean Paul

#again #during #life #loving #may

The Middle East is ailing. The malady stems from pervasive violence, shortages of food, water and educational opportunities, discrimination against women and - the most virulent cause of all - the absence of freedom. ↗

— Shimon Peres

#against #cause #discrimination #east #educational

There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America. ↗

— Harold Pinter

#america #court #criminal #get #hundreds

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great. ↗

— Roger de Rabutin

#extinguishes #fire #great #love #small