Nothing

“ Miss P***, I’ve a favor to ask.—If ’tis true,
That “Nothing to Wear,” and “Nothing to Do,”
And “Nothing to Eat,” were all written by you,—
Let those three Nothings content you I pray,
Say nothing yourself; leave me “Nothing to Say.” ”

“ What do you mean to the world? – Nothing!
Your existence is like smoke, – Nothing!
Two abysses are yawning from both sides,
And you are in between, just like them, – Nothing!
This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. ”

“ That is another glorious dream, for it would mean that there was something in this world which we got for nothing. But what is the truth? We are born into no right whatever but what has an equivalent and corresponding duty right alongside of it. ”

“ Until it can be proved that ‘there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity,’—which will never be, till we know how we lift our hands to our mouths,—there remains for us a world of mystery, which reason never can invade. ”

“ To-day the bitter wind swept over me and around me and into the remote corners of my brain and swept away the delusions, and buffeted my philosophy with rough insolence.
The world is made up mostly of nothing. ”

“ What are our experiences, then? Much more what we attribute to them than what they really are. Or should we perhaps say that nothing is contained in them? that experiences in themselves are merely works of fancy? ”

“ I come from nothingness and I am going to nothingness.”
“What is nothingness?”
“Everything. Nothingness is as far as your brains can think, my little princess; and then still farther, and nothingness is more than all that you see from this high tower. . . .”
“Are you never tired?”
“No, my wings are strong; I can bear all mankind on my back, and I could carry them away to the stars behind the stars.” ”

“ The outlines become blurred, the vision fades, the cries and sighs faint away ... and nothingness, nothingness encircles me.... The monotony of empty space, of inert thought, of dreamy lassitude! and more than all the monotony of an idle pen and lifeless paper that lacks the life of thought! Ah! How varied are the shapes of nothingness, and how, in its dark and silent way, it mocks creatures of my stamp! ”

“ All powers of action are oppressed and crushed by one overwhelming image in the mind, and nothing is present to me, but that which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence. ”

“ If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen. ”

“ But when we look at the character of the loading, there may be anything there, from diabolical and malignant spite up to the simplest fun, to say nothing of the almost impossibility of drawing the real truth, and the almost necessary tendency to exaggerate one thing and diminish another. ”

“ For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul that he was looking at. Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing more in his renunciation than that? There had been something more. ”

“ With the reality of things we have nothing to do, as we know nothing about them.’ These forms, if he will have it that they are but forms, affect us with pleasure and pain, just as if they were more real. ”

“ He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing. ”

“ Heaven and earth tire one. And then you find out that there truly is none. Nothing exists—neither sin, nor pain, nor desire—absolutely nothing. Only that exists which has some feeling. And for you, everything has feeling. ”

“ I find nothing so singular in life, as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it. ”

“ he was doing nothing, thinking of nothing, looking at nothing; he was merely suffering. ”

“ and, besides, nothing is worth doing except what the world says is impossible. ”

“ Ask the dust of the road and the leaves that fall, ask the mysterious God of life, for there is no other that knows such things. She gave him nothing—no, nothing did she give him—and yet he thanked her. ”

“ Let me say to you now that to do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual. ”

“ Everything in the world is—how shall I put it?—these ideas are not easy, they tear at a person’s brain before they become clear!—everything in the world is on the edge, on the verge, of dissolving away into what people call nothingness. ”

“ The man looked up distrustfully. “If thou speakest the truth,” said he, “I lose nothing when I lose my life. I am not much more than an animal which hath been taught to dance by blows and scanty fare.” ”

“ All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant. ”

“ Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, "Thy will be done". We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go. ”

“ "Always behave as if nothing had happened—no matter what has happened." ”

“ Somewhat impaired in a world where nothing is had for nothing; ”

“ It is odd, but the word nobody, and the term nothing, although no certain ideas can be affixed to them, are often made such use of in conversation. Philosophers have declared they knew nothing, and it is common for us to talk about doing nothing ”

“ But what then is left us, if the realistic definition of Being simply and rigidly applied, destroys its own entire realm, denies its own presuppositions, and shows us as its one unquestionable domain the meaningless wilderness of absolute Nothingness. ”

“ O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! ”

“ For there is no such thing as the road which they want to point out to us. And have not, as yet, all great human passions been similar passions for a nothingness? And all their ceremonies—ceremonies for a nothingness ? ”

“ Well, if there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn't be anything left for us to do, would there? ”

“ “Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing—desire. ”

“ But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes. ”

“ Of what avail is it to investigate what is miscalled material life, which ends, even as it begins, in nameless nothingness? The true sense of being and its eternal perfection should appear now, even as it will hereafter. ”

“ If a man will be beaten with brains, 'a shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruis'd, and love my cousin. ”

“ At certain times pull a cap over your head, so that you see nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing, and, as it were, shunt yourself off from what goes on around you, yourself, your volition, and your feelings. ”

“ He saw that nothing was good and nothing was evil; things were merely adapted to an end. ”

“ He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. ”

“ Had it been necessary, Joan would have plunged into a sea of fiction, but she had enough dramatic sense to perceive that nothing could be more effective than the truth, dashed in with plenty of colour. ”

“ If you can do so, you can attain complete control over your own body—for we alone are able to control our own masses by means of will.
"And if you can picture these masses of rock as pools of nothing and yourself as the same, you can pass yourself through these rocks as a whiff of smoke in air. You can revisualize yourself as solid outside this trapping pile." ”

“ But without strength, without godliness, sinners, and even enemies, we are permitted in His boundless mercy to receive the reconciliation, to throw ourselves, with nothing between, into the arms of Him who has redeemed us, and as we are, and just as we are, trust Him at once for a full, complete, and all-sufficient justification before God. ”

“ Let them then become organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be lovers; let them behold truth; and their eyes are uplifted, their wrinkles smoothed, they are perfumed again with hope and power. This old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every moment is new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts. ”

“ We do not rely on any intermediate authority who may discolour the truth as a painted window discolours the sunbeam, but we look straight at the truth itself in all its brilliant purity, and, though sometimes we may be dazzled by its brilliancy, we rejoice in the fact that there is nothing between. ”

“ Hold, grasp it firmly ; let it not escape,
View it, 'tis magic sure, be not dismay'd,
Nothing is seen without or light or shade.
Nothing deaf, hears; dumb, speaks; or wingless flies
Walks without legs or feet, sees without eyes;
Nothing can wander thro' the fields of space
Without a change of its respective place,
Nothing can greater benefits impart
To suffering mortals than the healing art.
Let not the anxious youth who has felt the pow'r
Of shafts Idalian in a luckless hour,
Reek by enchanted circles to assuage
The ardent fires that in his bosom rage ”

“ I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put in this place rather than in another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom, and as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. ”

“ Paul Ruttledge. Oh, I'll stand it well enough.
Tommy the Song. You're not like us that were reared to it. You were not born like us with wandering in the heart.
Paul Ruttledge. Oh yes, I have wandering in the heart. I got sick of these lighted rooms you were talking of just now.
Charlie Ward. That might be so. It's the dark is welcome to a man sometimes.
Paul Ruttledge. The dark. Yes, I think that is what I want. [Stands up.] The dark, where there is nothing that is anything, and nobody that is anybody; one can be free there, where there is nothing. ”

“ Molloy.
Mr. Carmody gazed out over the waters of the moat. His brain, quickened by the stimulating prospect of money for nothing, detected another doubtful point.
"Who would take the things?"
"You mean get them out of the house?"
"Exactly. Somebody would have to take them. It would be necessary to create the appearance of an actual burglary."
"Well, there'll be an actual burglary."
"But whom could we trust in such a vital matter?"
"That's all right. Pop's got a friend, another millionaire like himself, who would put this thing through just for the fun of it, to oblige Pop. ”