abyss quotes

Le coeur d'une me'  re est un ab|"me au fond duquel se trouve toujours un pardon. A mother'sheart isanabyss atthebottomof whichthere is always forgiveness.

- Honore   de Balzac
  La Femme de trente ans.

Nor second he, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy, The secrets of th'abyss to spy. He passed the flaming bounds of place and time: 370 The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, Where angels tremble, while they gaze, He saw; but blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night.

-Thomas Gray
  Of Milton. The Progress of Poesy, l.95^102.

After all the doors were shut, our region is facing a deep abyss after the turning of the Gulf crisis into an imminent catastrophe.We have not left a door that we did not knockon, ora road that we did not taketofind a political settlement of this crisis.

- ibnTalal Hussein
  On his attempts to intercede for peace in the Gulf  War, Jan.

And chiefly thou O spirit, that does prefer Before all temples th'upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great argument I mayassert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 580

-John Milton
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.16^25.

Who shall tempt with wand'ring feet The dark unbottomed infinite abyss And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight Upborne with indefatigable wings Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive The happy isle.

-John Milton
  Beelzebub. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.2, l.404^10.

As a military man who has given half a century of active service,Isay inall sincerity thatthenucleararmsracehas no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons; their existence onlyadds to our perils because of the illusions that they have generated. The world now stands on the brink of the final abyss. Let us all resolve to take all possible practicable steps to ensurethat we donot, through ourownfolly, go over the edge.

- 1st Earl Nicholas
  Speech at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg,11 May.

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

-Vladimir Nabokov
Conclusive Evidence (revised as  Speak, Memory,1966), ch.1.

Der Mensch ist ein Seil, geknu«  pft zwischenTier und « Ubermensch,ein Seil u«  ber einem Abgrunde. Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Supermana rope over an abyss.

- FriedrichWilhelm Nietzsche
^92  Also sprach Zarathustra ( Thus Spake Zarathustra), prologue, section 4 (translated by R  J Hollingdale).

Avictoriousgeneral isabletomakehissoldiersfight with the effect of pent-up waters which, suddenly released, plunge into a bottomless abyss.

-SunTzu
c.500  BC  Art ofWar, ch.4 (translated byYuan Shibang,1987).

It is not difficult to censor foreign news. What is difficult today is to censor one's own thoughts, To sit by and see the blind man On the sightless horse, riding into the bottomless abyss.

- Lech Walesa
  'Censorship'.