Distance Quotes
More Distance Quotes
We are not to be amazed that in the archaeological material of Pelagonia we have a rarely great wealth of reflections of all pronounced cultural events in the relations between middle-Danubian and Graeco-Aegean world [...] In a such great chronological distance in the life of ancient Pelagonia two stages are visible: development and existence in the frames of Hellenic culture and later the Roman one.
Ivan Mikulcic— Ethnic Macedonian archaeologist, "Pelagonija", Skopje (1966, p. 2, 4)
With eyes up-raised, as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sate retired, And from her wild sequestered seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, Poured thro' the mellow horn her pensive soul.
william collins— 'The Passions, An Ode for Music', lines 57-61 (1747)
The Earth is cylindrical, three times as wide as it is deep, and only the upper part is inhabited. But this Earth is isolated in space, and the sky is a complete sphere in the center of which is located, unsupported, our cylinder, the Earth, situated at an equal distance from all the points of the sky.
— Anaximander, as quoted in "Science Attests the Accuracy of the Bible" in The Watchtower (1 October 1980).
Such souls, Whose sudden visitations daze the world, Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind A voice that in the distance far away wakens the slumbering ages.
henry taylor— Philip van Artevelde, Act I, scene 7 (1834).
Sweetest melodies.Are those that are by distance made more sweet.
william wordsworth— William Wordsworth, Personal Talk, stanza 2.
Separation isn't time or distance it's the bridge between us finer than silk thread sharper than swords
nazim hikmet— From Separation (6 June 1960)
Yevtushenko has?an ego that can crack crystal at a distance of 20 feet.
John William Cheever— Recalled on Cheever's death,18 Jun1982.
Johnson approached a strongly fortified position by outflanking it, or burrowing under it, or surprising the defenders from the rear, or raining down obstacles upon them from the sky, or starving them into submission? Rarely, and then only reluctantly, would he proceed directly from A to B, to him the shortest distance between two points was a tunnel.
William Raymond Manchester— 1967 Of Lyndon B Johnson. The Death of a President.
I suffer the anthropological malady diagnosed by Le vi- Strauss inTristes tropiques: I find it much more difficult to suspend value judgments about the society in which I normally reside than I do abroad. It takes physical and cultural distance to gain moral detachment and political noncommitment. Relativism implies a solid measure of indifference.
Pierre L van den Berghe— 'From the Popocatepetl to the Limpopo', collected in Bennett Berger (ed) Authors of their Own Lives (1990).
Every painter must traverse for himself that distance from Paris to Aix (where Paul Cézanne worked a lot, fh) or from Venice to Toledo (where El Greco painted a lot, fh). Expression is for one knowing its own pivot. Every expressor relates solely to himself – that is the concern of the individualist.
marsden hartley— statement for catalogue of Forum exhibition 1916, reprinted in On art, p. 66-67, as quoted in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 57
There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
mary magdalene— Matthew 27:55 (English Standard Version)
Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality’s laws – poorly understood and applied – are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.
constantine p. cavafy— The Regiment of the Senses as translated by Manuel Savidis
At night I sit in my chamber and read the bible . Far in the distance roars the sea. Then I lie down and think for a long time about the calm and pale man from Nazareth.
joseph goebbels— Abends sitze ich auf meinem Zimmer und lese die Bibel. In der Ferne braust das Meer. Dann liege ich noch lange wach und denke an den stillen, bleichen Mann von Nazareth.
I wrote a little song for you With a melody I'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme To repeat what you already knew; As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation, You kept a distance out of fear you'd break, But what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?
aaron weiss— In a Market Dimly Lit.
O, marvelous power of the Divine seed, which overpowers the strong man armed, softens obdurate hearts, and changes into divine men those who were brutalized in sin, and removed to an infinite distance from God.
— John Wycliffe, p. 288. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
The Earth is cylindrical, three times as wide as it is deep, and only the upper part is inhabited. But this Earth is isolated in space, and the sky is a complete sphere in the center of which is located, unsupported, our cylinder, the Earth, situated at an equal distance from all the points of the sky.
— As quoted in "Science Attests the Accuracy of the Bible" in The Watchtower (1 October 1980)
The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear Their coming back seems possible For manyan ardent year.
— Complete Poems, no.1742 (first published1896).
Freedom from the world is, in principle, not asceticism, but rather a distance from the world for which all participation in things worldly takes place in the attitude of “as if not.” (1 Cor. 7:29-31)
rudolf bultmann— p. 18 (New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1984))
It was a distance about twice as long as this room; then there was a wall, and just beyond it the crematory. When the wind blew in at the south I got smoke in my cell. It was a fat smoke, big flakes of smoke - human smoke.
franz halder— To Leon Goldensohn, April 5, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
There’s a magic in the distance, where the sea-line meets the sky.
Alfred Noyes— Forty Singing Seamen
[I]f one day I look out from my cabin's porch and see a row of windmills spinning in the distance, I won't curse them. I will praise them. It will mean we are finally getting somewhere.
david suzuki— ibid.
The roles that we construct are constructed because we feel that they will help us to survive and also, of course, because they fulfill something in our personalities; and one does not, therefore, cease playing a role simply because one has begun to understand it. All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.
james baldwin— "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" in Esquire (May 1961)
There's always something that's smoldering somewhere I know it don't make a difference to you But oh! It sure made a difference to me You'll see me off in the distance, I hope At the other end At the other end of the telescope.
elvis costello— The Other End (of the Telescope), written by Elvis Costello and Aimee Mann
Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference to the foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights’ sensations.
Charles Lamb— “The superannuated man”
He was always surrounded by a crowd of fools and I didn't want to get caught up in it. I admired him from a distance.
pierre-auguste renoir— p. 12 : Renoir’s remark to Vollard referring to the pre-impressionist landscape-painter Camille Corot.
Experience needs distance and what you write of at a distance tells not so much what you were like as what you have discovered since.
— David Wade, On the BBC production I, William Shakespeare, London Times (May 8, 1982).
