#absence

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. ↗

— Elizabeth Bowen

#absent #better #blots #friends #heart

Would that thy love, beloved, had less trust in me, that it might be more anxious! ↗

— Héloïse d'Argenteuil

#desire #fear #jealousy #longing #love

We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind. ↗

— John Robert Seeley

#conquered #fit #half #mind #peopled

You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell. ↗

— Isabel Allende

#angel #damnation #ecstasy #love #love

People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#happiness #happy #joy #pain #relief

It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way. I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence? Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow? ↗

— Audrey Niffenegger

#love

Doctors most commonly get mixed up between absence of evidence and evidence of abense ↗

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#evidence #medicine #quip #wordplay #medicine

Coughs seem very common here, especially among the children, though people look strong and healthy, but in the absence of proper statistics one cannot undertake to say whether the district is a healthy one or not. ↗

— Edward Burnett Tylor

#among #cannot #children #common #district

In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless. ↗

— Aleister Crowley

#collection #complete #most #talents #virtues

And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else. ↗

— Patti Davis

#as far as #else #false #far #hope