#absence

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ↗

— Saint Augustine

#absence #justice #organized #robbery #sovereignty

Martin said, "It feels as though part of my self has detached and gone to Amsterdam, where it—she—is waiting for me. Do you know about phantom-limb syndrome?" Julia nodded. "There's pain where she ought to be. It's feeding the other pain, the thing that makes me wash and count and all that. So her absence is stopping me from going to find her. Do you see? ↗

— Audrey Niffenegger

#love #ocd #pain #love

Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence. Consequently, even if something beneficial fortuitously entered their lives they immediately treated it as temporary. By the time they were teenagers they were already accustomed to a discontinuous lifestyle marked by constant threats of abandonment and the lack of any emotional stability. Unfortunately, "accustomed to" here is really synonymous with "damaged by. ↗

— Mark Z. Danielewski

#damaged #lifestyle

And,” Annabeth continued, “it reminds me how long we’ve known each other. We were twelve, Percy. Can you believe that?” “No, he admitted. “So…you knew you liked me from that moment?” She smirked. “I hated you at first. You annoyed me. Then I tolerated you for a few years. Then—” “Okay, fine.” She leaned in and kissed: him a good, proper kiss without anyone watching—no Romans anywhere, no screaming satyr chaperones. She pulled away. “I missed you, Percy.” Percy wanted to tell her the same thing, but it seemed too small a comment. While he had been on the Roman side, he’d kept himself alive almost solely by thinking of Annabeth. I missed you didn’t really cover that. ↗

— Rick Riordan

#annabeth-chase #heroes-of-olympus #missing-you #percy-jackson #percy-jackson-and-the-olympians

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. ↗

— Thomas Paine

#asylum #complexion #due #jerusalem #lunatic

Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression. ↗

— John Charles Polanyi

#been #brutal #century #human #human rights

When you're having a bad day at work, a lot of times it's your head. When you're having good days, a lot of times it's the absence of the mind. ↗

— Curt Schilling

#bad #bad day #day #days #good

We want to see Israel withdraw from our territory. But we don't want to be accountable vis-a-vis Israel on the security basis, because we don't see, in the absence of a peace agreement, that Lebanon can really be accountable to Israel if anything happens. ↗

— Rafik Hariri

#accountable #agreement #anything #basis #because

While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap. ↗

— Ray Kroc

#advantage #fatal #formal #guarantee #handicap

In 1916 I was discharged from military service, or rather, given a sort of leave of absence on the understanding that I might be recalled within a few months. And so I was a free man, at least for a while. ↗

— George Grosz

#discharged #few #free #free man #given