quotations about absence
As 'tis ever common
That men are merriest when they are from home.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
Absence not long enough to root out quite
All love, increases love at second sight.
THOMAS MAY
Henry II
Days of absence, sad and dreary,
Clothed in sorrow's dark array---
Days of absence, I am weary;
She I love is far away.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Days of Absence
We live together separately
We don't want to fall apart
But every time we kiss there's an emptiness
An absence of the heart
DEANA CARTER
"Absence of the Heart"
Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it.
CHARLES LAMB
"Amicus Redivivus", Last Essays of Elia
Absence is to love what wind is to a fire; it puts out the little, it kindles the great.
ROGER DE BUSSY-RABUTIN
Epigram
Tho' lost to sight, to mem'ry dear
Thou ever wilt remain.
GEORGE LINLEY
Tho' Lost to Sight
Out of sight, out of mind.
HOMER
Odyssey
Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
Friends, though absent, are still present.
CICERO
De Amicitia
Absence! is not the soul torn by it
From more than light, or life, or breath?
'Tis Lethe's gloom, but not its quiet--
The pain without the peace of death!
THOMAS CAMPBELL
"Absence"
Absence and death are the same--only that in death there is no suffering.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
letter to Robert Browning, Walter Savage Landor: Last Days, Letters and Conversations
Everyone agrees that the absent are warned by a ringing in the ears when they are being talked about.
PLINY
Naturalis Historia
Think not, O thou guide of my youth, that absence can impair my respect, or interposing trackless deserts blot your reverend figure from my memory.... By every remove, I only drag a greater length of chain.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Citizen of the World
Achilles absent, was Achilles still.
HOMER
The Iliad
Our hours in love have wings; in absence crutches.
COLLEY CIBBER
Xerxes
Absence is the enemy of love.
ITALIAN PROVERB
Absence is the invisible and incorporeal mother of ideal beauty.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
I dote on his very absence, and I wish them a fair departure.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Merchant of Venice
Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Premieres Meditations Poetiques