God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent than when He is present.
Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination. [Lat. , Factis ignoscite nostris Si scelus ingenio scitis abesse meo. ]
Love is implicit in every connection. It should be. Thus when absent it makes us insane. (You Shall Know Our Velocity)
To love in the sense of passion-love is the contrary of to live. It is an impoverishment of one's being, an askesis without sequel, an inability to enjoy the present without imagining it as absent, a never-ending flight from possession.
Greater things are believed of those who are absent.
If there's no relationship with a father who's absent, nobody talks about it.
Meditation, then, is a state of mind in which the 'me' is absent. And therefore that very absence brings order.
Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.
I suppose that by being absent from the music business, it appeared that I just dropped out, but really I never did. I was continuously working and doing various things.
Painting is possessed of divine power, for not only does it make the absent present, but also makes the dead almost alive.
Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
When passion is dead, or absent, then the magnificent throb of beauty is incomprehensible and even a little despicable.
It's been said that the men in my books have been absent, or weak, or creepy.
The absent partie is still faultie.
They are enthusiasts, devotees. Addicts. Something about the circus stirs their souls, and they ache for it when it is absent. They seek each other out, these people of such specific like mind. They tell of how they found the circus, how those first few steps were like magic. Like stepping into a fairy tale under a curtain of stars… When they depart, they shake hands and embrace like old friends, even if they have only just met, and as they go their separate ways they feel less alone than they had before.
Achilles absent was Achilles still!
In a world where meaning is often absent or imposed, reading offers a dialogue with ourselves, with society, with history, and with the dead.
A good method of discovery is to imagine certain members of a system removed and then see how what is left would behave: for example, where would we be if iron were absent from the world: this is an old example.
An artist cannot get along without a public; and when the public is absent, what does he do? He invents it, and turning his back on his age, he looks toward the future for what the present denies.