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Nothingness Quotes

Browse 618 quotes about Nothingness.

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Nothingness Quotes

“Since Copernicus, man seems to have got himself on an inclined plane-now he is slipping faster and faster away from the center into-what? into nothingness? into a 'penetrating sense of his nothingness?' ... all science, natural as well as unnatural-which is what I call the self-critique of knowledge-has at present the object of dissuading man from his former respect for himself, as if this had been but a piece of bizarre conceit.”

IfsMenWellsSelfSeemsScienceNaturalPiecesObjectsAccountsFormerFasterPlanesNothingnessBizarreConceitUnnaturalCritiqueSlippingCopernicus
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“My whole effort is to help you to disappear. My whole effort is to help you to be so empty: anatta - non-being. Because if you are, you will remain in trouble. If you are, you will remain limited. If you are, there will be a definition to your being - and you will never be overflowing. Only emptiness can be overflowing, only emptiness can be at ease. Only emptiness can be life abundant. To be, the way passes through non-being. If you really want to be, you will have to drop all concepts of your being. You will have to disappear, by and by. You will have to melt into nothingness.”

IfsWayWantWholeHelpingEffortTroubleConceptsEmptyDefinitionsDisappearEaseEmptinessBe YouNothingness
Author:Rajneesh
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“One day you will disappear on a funeral pyre - just into nothingness, as smoke. Don't get attached to anything. This attachment takes you away from your real being; you become focused on the thing to which you are attached. Your awareness gets lost in things, in money, in people, in power. And there are a thousand and one things, the whole thick jungle around you, to be lost in. Remember, non-attachment is the secret of finding yourself, then awareness can turn inwards because you don't have anything outside to catch hold of. It is free, and in this freedom you can know your self-nature.”

PeopleKnowsRealSelfWholeRememberTurnsLostSecretOne ThingAwarenessOne DayThousandFindingsFocusedDisappearSmokeFinding YourselfAttachmentFuneralThickNothingnessJungle
Author:Rajneesh
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“My Lord Jesus Christ, who, for the love You bear to mankind, do remain night and day in this Sacrament, full of pity and love, awaiting, calling, and receiving all who come to visit You; I believe that You are present in the Sacrament of the Altar; I adore You from the depths of my own nothingness; I thank You for the many graces You have given me, and especially for having given me Yourself in this Sacrament.”

BelieveNightJesusGivenI BelieveChristMy OwnLordGraceMankindLove YouBearsCallingJesus ChristAnd LoveDepthPityReceivingNothingnessSacramentsAdoreAltarsLord Jesus ChristAdore YouVisits YouI Adore You
Author:Alphonsus Liguori
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“There is no ground for supposing that matter and energy existed before [the Big Bang] and were suddenly galvanized into action. For what could distinguish that moment from all other moments in eternity? It is simpler to postulate creation ex nihilo-Divine will constituting Nature from nothingness.”

MatterMomentsBigsActionEnergyAtheismCreationDivineEternityThat MomentNothingnessExesBangsSupposingDivine WillSupposing ThatMatter And Energy
Author:E. T. Whittaker
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“In it he proves that all things are true and states how the truths of all contradictions may be reconciled physically, such as for example that white is black and black is white; that one can be and not be at the same time; that there can be hills without valleys; that nothingness is something and that everything, which is, is not. But take note that he proves all these unheard-of paradoxes without any fallacious or sophistical reasoning.”

MayStatesBlackWhiteExampleProveAll ThingsPhilosophicalNotesHillsReasoningContradictionParadoxValleysNothingnessUnheard
Author:Cyrano de Bergerac
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“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our life, which is inaccessable to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.”

MindLittlesGodTruthSpiritualPovertyFantasyOur LivesPureGloryIllusionAbsolutesSparksNothingnessBrutalityGlory Of God
Book:On Christian Contemplation
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“Ultimately, Leibniz argued, there are only two absolutely simple concepts, God and Nothingness. From these, all other concepts may be constructed, the world, and everything within it, arising from some primordial argument between the deity and nothing whatsoever. And then, by some inscrutable incandescent insight, Leibniz came to see that what is crucial in what he had written is the alternation between God and Nothingness. And for this, the numbers 0 and 1 suffice.”

WorldMayTwoSimpleNumbersWrittenConceptsArgumentInsightCrucialNothingnessDeitiesInscrutable
Book:The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World
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“My loneliness...still comes over me sometimes...It's a liminal, lost sensation of having wandered wide, endless boulevards, among rows of orange trees, winter butterflies, seasons reversed and out of order, dogs barking from behind fences meant to keep out intruders. It's not the place that impoverishes me but I who bring my own sense of poverty, of loss, to the place. It's a sense of near nothingness, as though I were not so much a blank slate as an erased chalkboard, still bearing illegible smudges of smoothed-over writing.”

WritingStillsSometimesOrderLostMy OwnLossBehindsPovertyTreeDogLonelinessSeasonsWinterWideEndlessSensationsButterflyBlankNothingnessFenceOrangeSlateBoulevardIntrudersBlank SlatesChalkboardsOrange Trees
Author:Marco Roth
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“Bertrand Russell said, 'Electricity is not a thing like St. Paul's Cathedral; it is a way in which things behave.' And it's not 'they' who say, but Walter Benjamin who said, 'Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only costumes beneath which they exchange glances with nothingness, with the base and the banal.' In September, 1940, Benjamin died under ambiguous circumstances in the French-Spanish border town of Portbou, while attempting to flee the Nazis.”

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Author:Mary Jo Bang
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“It is said that peace is the basic tenet of all religion. Yet it is in the name of religion that there has been so much disturbance, bloodshed and persecution. It is indeed a pity that even at the close of the twentieth century we've had to witness such atrocities because of religion. Flying the flag of religion has always proved the easiest way to crush to nothingness human beings as well as the spirit of humanity.”

WayHumansWellsHas BeensSaidSpiritHumanityNamesHuman BeingsCenturyFlyingPityWitnessCrushFlagsNothingnessPersecutionTwentieth CenturyAtrocitiesDisturbanceBloodshed
Author:Taslima Nasrin
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“I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness.”

WantGivingFeelsHeartChristianLyingLanguageMy OwnPrayerFeetMy HeartMouthsWeaknessAbsolutesChristian InspirationalPassiveNothingnessDispositionResignationMerging
Book:Daily Scripture Readings: In Three Volumes
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“There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.”

WantBlackStepsAliveWallDepressionExtremesMonstersHorribleEmptinessBad ThingsVoidContemplatingNothingnessEnteringCavesThere Comes A TimeMonstrosityBlankness
Author:Stephen Fry
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“Either death is a state of nothingness and utter consciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.”

IfsMenWorldSoulStatesDeathNightDiesConsciousnessThis WorldGainsEternityNothingnessMigrationUnconsciousnessNear Death
Book:The Trial and Death of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo
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“If alpha [the fine-structure constant] were bigger than it really is, we should not be able to distinguish matter from ether [the vacuum, nothingness], and our task to disentangle the natural laws would be hopelessly difficult. The fact however that alpha has just its value 1/137 is certainly no chance but itself a law of nature. It is clear that the explanation of this number must be the central problem of natural philosophy.”

IfsShouldMatterPhilosophyFactsProblemWould BeAbleLawValuesDifficultNaturalChanceNumbersClearFineTasksBiggerStructureConstantExplanationNothingnessLaws Of NatureVacuumsNatural LawAlphasNatural Philosophy
Author:Max Born
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“May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is the Father, Son and Spirit.”

MayChildrenSpiritDesireFatherPovertyPlansSonExpectationsGod LoveFrustratedNothingnessFather SonPowerlessnessWithered
Book:Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
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“I humbly believe our life is to learn our nothingness and His being everything; when we agree with Him that we are nothing and not astonished at our evil nature breaking forth, when we are willing for the last to be first, when we are willing to be the least in Heaven that every one we know should be higher than ourselves, then, I think, our lesson is learnt. If we are annoyed at any disparaging remark or conduct of our fellows, it is because we are not yet fully aware of our being nothing.”

IfsThinkingKnowsShouldFirstsBelieveLastsLife IsEvilHeavenOur LivesWillingHigherLessonsAgreeFellowsTemptationNothingnessRemarksAnnoyedDisparaging
Book:Letters of General C.G. Gordon to His Sister, M.A. Gordon
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