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Oblivion Quotes

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Oblivion Quotes

“Then there are the addicts, the hunger addicts, the rage addicts, the poverty addicts, and power addicts, and the pure addicts who are addicted not to substances but to the oblivion and the tenderness the substances engender. An addict, if you don't mind me saying so, is like a saint. What is a saint but someone who has cut himself off, voluntarily, from the world's traffic and currency?”

IfsWorldMindPovertyCuttingPureSaintHungerRageSubstanceTendernessCurrencyTrafficAddictOblivion
Author:Jeet Thayil
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“In Irena’s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and at the same time the curtain of oblivion wraps her lewdness in an all-concealing darkness. As if a poet were writing his greatest poem with ink that instantly disappears.”

IfsWritingPlayMemoriesRolesDarknessFantasyPoetDisappearAlcoholSensualMaking LoveCurtainsOblivionInkBoldnessWrapsConcealing
Author:Milan Kundera
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“Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America—burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion.”

PlayAmericaChoicesFallLordCenturyMadCleanDustFranceBritainEmpiresRomeSaltSwingsBurnedAgain And AgainHelplessDoomedEgyptSpainOblivionSequenceGreeceHaltPhoenixUnendingChainedClockworkRise And FallPendulumsBabylonCarthage
Book:A Canticle For Leibowitz
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“The avalanche of time sweeps everything before it. Every individual instant hurtles into oblivion, drowning out the obliteration of the instant immediately preceding it, and then it too disappears under the onslaught of the next and the next and the next. When the avalanche has shuddered past for a long enough time, the perception of the past evolves. Distant events grow beyond mere history and take on the weight of legend.”

LongEnoughPastTimeNextIndividualGrowsEventsPerceptionWeightMereDisappearEvolveInstantLegendsEnd TimesOblivionDrowningEnough TimeAvalanches
Book:Under the Eye of God
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“Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity. . . . But the tale of history forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time, and checks in some measure its irresistible flow, so that, of all things done in it, as many as history has taken over it secures and binds together, and does not allow them to slip away into the abyss of oblivion.”

DoeDoneTogetherFormStrongHistoryTakenFlowAll ThingsDepthChecksTalesStreamsCarrieOver ItSlipsVery StrongFloodAbyssOblivionIrresistibleObscurityThings Done
Author:Anna Komnene
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“History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion.”

IfsNeedsActionValuesCausesInterestingHistoryPlansWrittenEventsKingsAchievementAbsolutesHarmonyHistoricalPlanningMotiveAppropriateMarchBuriedHistorianOblivionProphetic
Book:The Life of Reason: Human Understanding
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“Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast, That still the knot, in spite of death, does last; For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul, Prove well that on your part this bond is whole, So all we know of what they do above, Is that they happy are, and that they love. Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave, Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have; Well-chosen love is never taught to die, But with our nobler part invades the sky.”

KnowsLifeWellsHeartDoeStillsSoulWholeLastsDiesDarkLove IsVirtueSkyTearsTaughtSorrowProveGravesChosenSpiteWoundedConsentOblivionHollowKnots
Book:Poetical Works of Edmund Waller. Edited by Robert Bell
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“The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary.”

BelieveLongFactsFeelingsRealityTruthLyingProcessForgetExistenceMediaNeededMassDrawsConsciousAccountsGuiltDenyTyrannyObjectivesDeceptionSufficientUnconsciousTyrantsOblivionDeliberatePrecisionInconvenientMass MediaFalsityObjective RealityMedia ControlIgnorance In 1984
Author:George Orwell
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“Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning it was not a Word, but a chirrup.”

LongStillsMomentsLastsTimeJesusForceGoneSingingPlantCrushSpokesEndurancePreachingOblivionBrutesPyramidsMother NatureDaisiesNightingalesBrute ForceBirdsongBirds Chirping
Book:Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays
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“Think of it. We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before - that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.”

ThinkingKnowsGivingHumansMomentsWould BeEarthHumanityChanceRaceKnownTechnologyPlanetsBlessedLifetimeFinalsOblivionUtopiaUtopianForefathersIndescribableKnow It AllRelaysRelay Races
Author:R. Buckminster Fuller
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“There is reason to suspect, that the distinctions of mankind have more show than value, when it is found that all agree to be weary alike of pleasures and of cares; that the powerful and the weak, the celebrated and obscure, join in one common wish, and implore from nature's hand the nectar of oblivion.”

ReasonShowsHandsCareValuesHumanityFoundWishPleasurePowerfulCommonMankindWeakAgreeDistinctionSuspectsWearyObscureOblivionNectar
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius
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“The fear of meeting the opposition of envy, or the illiberality of ignorance is, no doubt, the frequent cause of preventing many ingenious men from ushering opinions into the world which deviate from common practice. Hence for want of energy, the young idea is shackled with timidity and a useful thought is buried in the impenetrable gloom of eternal oblivion.”

MenWorldWantIdeasYoungScienceEnergyCausesCommonOpinionPracticeDoubtIgnoranceEternalMeetingsEnvyIgnorantNo DoubtOppositionBuriedOblivionGloomPreventingIngeniousTimidityDeviateUseful Thoughts
Author:Robert Fulton
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“Mankind . . . possesses two supreme blessings. First of these is the goddess Demeter, or Earth whichever name you choose to call her by. It was she who gave to man his nourishment of grain. But after her there came the son of Semele, who matched her present by inventing liquid wine as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift, suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles of the day. There is no other medicine for misery.”

MenFirstsTwoEarthSufferingNamesSleepForgetGriefTroubleMankindSonBlessingFilledWineMedicineMiserySupremeYou ChooseGoddessGrainOblivionForget ItLiquidGrapesNourishmentInventingMatchedVineyardsGood WineFrench WineDemeter
Book:The complete Greek tragedies
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“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.”

MenWayLifeYearsLooksMeanMovingArtistBehindsWallHundredAimFinalsStrangerMortalsFixedSomedayImmortalArtificialOblivionIrrevocable
Author:William Faulkner
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“So the crew fly on with no thought that they are in motion. Like night over the sea, they are very far from the earth, from towns, from trees. The clock ticks on. The dials, the radio lamps, the various hands and needles go though their invisible alchemy. . . . and when the hour is at hand the pilot may glue his forehead to the window with perfect assurance. Out of oblivion the gold has been smelted: there it gleams in the lights of the airport.”

MayHas BeensHandsLightEarthNightHoursPerfectTreeSeaWindowGoldTownsRadioVariousInvisibleFlightClockAviationPilotsCrewAssuranceOblivionLampsAirportsNeedlesForeheadsAlchemyGlueTickGleam
Author:Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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