Absence Presence Quotes & Sayings

A negative and toxic person never feels teased with the genuine presence of the pretenders in his network and he always feels pleased with the absence of the genuine leader in his circle. — Anuj

It is strange that an absence can feel like presence. A missing so complete that if it were to go away, I would turn around, stunned, to see that the room is empty after all when before it had something. — Ally Condie

If you wish to discern either the presence or absence of integrity, you need to ask only one question. What is missing? Has anything been left out? — M. Scott Peck

My childhood was defined by my father's absence. His presence looms so large. Up until the age of 18, he was a superstar for me. — Said Sayrafiezadeh

It's peculiar how no-words can be better than words. Silence can say more than noise, in the same way that a person's absence can occupy even more space than their presence did. — Ali Benjamin

When you find inner peace, neither the presence nor absence of any person, place or thing, condition, circumstance, or situation can be the Creator of your state of mind or the cause of your experience of being. — Neale Donald Walsch

No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren't designed to produce them, if we don't speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist. — Donella Meadows

I bow in reverence before the emotions of every melted heart ... The more intense the delight in their presence, the more poignant the impression of their absence ... When the tears of bereavement have had their natural flow, they lead us again to life and love's generous joy. — James Martineau

Being with Demetri wasn't the absence of pain, it was the added presence of peace, making it easier and easier for that little part of my heart to heal again.
From Pull: A Seaside Novel — Rachel Van Dyken

The words, gestures, and threats of our officers were thrown away upon men who had lost all presence of mind and only longed for absence of body. — Andrew Potter

ACCIDENT A condition of affairs in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body better. — Gideon Wurdz

common sense observations of human behavior support a similar dissociation in reasoning abilities which cuts in both directions. We all know persons who are exceedingly clever in their social navigation, who have an unerring sense of how to seek advantage for themselves and for their group, but who can be remarkably inept when trusted with a nonpersonal, nonsocial problem. The reverse condition is just as dramatic: We all know creative scientists and artists whose social sense is a disgrace, and who regularly harm themselves and others with their behavior. The absent-minded professor is the benign variety of the latter type. At work, in these different personality styles, are the presence or absence of what Howard Gardner has called "social intelligence," or the presence or absence of one or the other of his multiple intelligences such as the "mathematical. — Antonio R. Damasio

Have we ever thought to consider that the need to be loved grows because of its absence, but that love also grows because of its presence? And does this not speak to the power of love? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Your absence is the presence of godliness. — Rajneesh

The mark of community is not the absence of conflict. It's the presence of a reconciling spirit. — Bill Hybels

Animals are not just other species. They are other nations. And we murder them at our peril. The peace map is drawn on a menu. Peace is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of Justice. Justice must be blind to race, color, religion or species. If she is not blind, she will be a weapon of terror. — Philip Wollen

My mother, who taught me how to read and write and home-schooled me for the first 12 years of my life, whose presence shaped me as much as her absence did, who imbibed in me the values of empathy and fearlessness and hard work, looks down on me today with great pride. — Sharad Vivek Sagar

Sabbath is more than the absence of work; it is not just a day off, when we catch up on television or errands. It is the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most deeply beautiful, nourishing, or true. It is time consecrated with our attention, our mindfulness, honoring those quiet forces of grace or spirit that sustain and heal us. — Wayne Muller

The goal of life is not the absence of pain. It's the presence of glory. God's glory. And sometimes that comes most vividly with pain. Not only have I learned that pain doesn't kill; I have learned that I will never lose or be betrayed by the one thing with absolute power to destroy me - God Himself. — Beth Moore

The bond between a parent and child is the primary bond, the foundation for the rest of the child's life. The presence or absence of this bond determines much about the child's resiliency and what kind of adult they will grow up to be. — Jane Fonda

peace is not about the absence of conflict but it is about the presence of sincerity. — Toge Aprilianto

Grace is not the absence of the struggle; it is the presence of protection. — Sarah Jakes

Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence! — Edsger W. Dijkstra

Like a missing tooth, sometimes an absence is more noticeable than a presence. — Jodi Picoult

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organ of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing by ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A good taste in art feels the presence or the absence of merit; a just taste discriminates the degree
the poco piu and the poco meno. A good taste rejects faults; a just taste selects excellences. A good taste is often unconscious; a just taste is always conscious. A good taste may be lowered or spoilt; a just taste can only go on refining more and more. — Anna Brownell Jameson

Wilderness is not defined by the absence of certain activities, but rather by the presence of certain unique and invaluable characteristics. — Nick Rahall

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence. — Robert Fripp

Whether the pain you face now is the consequence of your sin or the sin of others, in God's providence and in saving faith, Romans 8:28 still reigns: "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." It is not the absence of sin that makes you a believer. It is the presence of Christ in the midst of your struggle that commends the believer and sets you apart in the world. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

I think you can photograph a certain sliver of human presence in its absence ... images taken in the empty rooms, the marks left on the walls, disappearing shadows, etc. — Mona Kuhn

I cannot sleep in your presence In your absence, tears prevent me you watch me my beloved on each sleepiness night and Only you see the difference — Rumi

How to describe hell? Disembowelled landscape busy with suffering, incessant heat, permanent scarlet twilight, a swirling snowfall of ash, the stink of pain and the din of ... if only, hell is two things: the absence of God and the presence of time. Infinite variations on that theme. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well, trust me. — Glen Duncan

Thirteen days. Almost two weeks. And, just five days in, she had learned a fundamental truth about time: Like the accordion on which sometimes played old Pashto songs were played, time stretched and contracted depending on his absence or presence. — Khaled Hosseini

He was looking for immensity. His life was hopelessly small, everything surrounding him was nondescript and gray. And death is absolute; it is indivisible and indissoluble.
The presence of the girl was pathetic (a few caresses and a lot of meaningless words), but her absolute absence was infinitely grand; when he imagined a girl buried in a field, he suddenly discovered the nobility of pain and the grandeur of love.
But it was not only the absolute but also bliss he was looking for in his dreams of death. — Milan Kundera

You know you have influence when people start noticing your absence more than the presence of others. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything . . . It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it. — Gordon Hempton

What a joke, coming from a woman who worked for the fashion industry. Really. Starving yourself to fit into a size zero - why did that size even exist? Zero referred to the absence of something, but what did it mean in terms of a model's measurements? Her fat? Or her presence? How much could you cut away before the person herself vanished? It was hypocritical, that's what it was. I said as much, adding, If you're so keen on me being healthy then you should have no problem accepting me for the way I am. That's what's healthy, Mom. Not being focused on all this freaky weight-loss stuff. — Nenia Campbell

You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell. — Isabel Allende

The most powerful presence in the room is his absence. — Claudia Gray

Or rather, I dreamed of her constantly, only as absence, not presence: a breeze blowing through a just-vacated house, her handwriting on a notepad, the smell of her perfume, streets in strange lost towns where I knew she'd been walking only a moment before but had just vanished, a shadow moving away against a sunstruck wall. Sometimes I spotted her in a crowd, or in a taxicab pulling away, and these glimpses of her I treasured despite the fact that I was never able to catch up with her. — Donna Tartt

We know that an object that is not consciously noticed at the time of a first visit can, by its absence during subsequent visits, provoke an indefinable impression: as a result of this sighting backward in time, the absence of the object becomes a presence one can feel. — Ivan Chtcheglov

I knew that Clara kept Carax's book in a glass cabinet by the arch of the balcony. I crept up to it. My plan, or my lack of it, was to lay my hands on the book, take it out of there, give it to that lunatic, and lose sight of him forever after. Nobody would notice the book's absence, except me. Carax's book was waiting for me, as it always did, its spine just visible at the end of a shelf. I took it in my hands and pressed it against my chest, as if embracing an old friend whom I was about to betray. Judas, I thought. I decided to leave the place without making Clara aware of my presence. I would take the book and disappear from Clara's life forever. Quietly, I stepped out of the library. The door of her bedroom was just visible at the end of the corridor ... I walked slowly up to the door. I put my fingers on the doorknob. My fingers trembled. I had arrived too late. I swallowed hard and opened the door. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

For true peace of mind we must acknowledge whatever fault we live upon, whatever time bomb ticks in our closet, and enjoy our Shangri-la nonetheless. It isn't the absence of the problem; it is how one lives in its presence that matters. — Chungliang Al Huang

The 'peace' the gospel brings is never the absence of conflict, but an ineffable divine reassurance within the heart of conflict; a peace that surpasses understanding. — Walter Wink

It is like being in the desert. At first you listen to the absence of sounds and call it silence. Then suddenly you may be taken by the presence of stillness where you are one with listening itself. — Jean Klein

Valiant! The word mocked me, for I knew myself to be anything but valiant. What I had done, I had done in a fit of insane bitterness, not with cool courage, not with brave quick thinking, not with presence of mind - but with absence of it. — Kenneth Roberts

We plead not ourselves, but the promises of Jesus; not our strengths but His; our weaknesses yes, but His mercies. Our way of fighting is to hide behind Jesus who fights for us. Our hope is not the absence of our regret, or misery or doubt or lament, but the presence of Jesus. — Zack Eswine

Death is always an event in future. Its presence is unrealizable. Its absence is unmanageable. It is a concrete intangibility in that its nature is somehow non-human. Man, thus must be a subject of constant simplification going from a stage of 'more' to a stage of 'less'. Man, thus must always be dying. — Ashfaq Saraf

Epictetus, I think, said not to be concerned with death, because life is the presence of feeling and emotion and awareness, and death is the absence of all of that, which means you won't have any awareness. So why worry about it ? — Richard Schickel

That night for the first time in my life I realized that it is the physical presence of people and their spirits that gives a town life. With the absence of so many people, the town became scary., the night darker, and the silence unbearably agitating. Normally, the crickets and the birds sang in the evening before the sun went down. But this time they didn't, and the darkness set in very fast. The mood wasn't in the sky; the air was stiff, as if nature itself was afraid of what was happening. — Ishmael Beah

What separates people is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life. — James C. Collins

Peace is not only the absence of war, but the presence of harmony. — Debasish Mridha

One can become so sentimental about a person's absence, but it's impossible to be consistently sentimental in his presence - when you're confronted with the quotidian selfishness and silence that, I'm given to understand, comprise most of a life. But we were just so new. — Jennifer DuBois

Peace comes not from the absence of trouble, but from the presence of God. — Alexander MacLaren

Many people believe that evil is the presence of something. I think it's the absence of something. — Lisa Unger

Safety is not the absence of danger, but the presence of God. — Jeanette Windle

Love is a funny thing, isn't it? The presence of it can bring you to save a foe, the absence of it can make you hurt your own flesh. — Stefanie Schneider

Peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of Christ. — Sheila Walsh

Work hard for a cause, not for applause. Live life to express, not to impress. Don't strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt. — Sally Willard Burbank

He was allying himself to science, for what was science but the absence of prejudice backed by the presence of money? His life would be full of machinery, which was the antidote to superstition ... — Henry James

The omnipresent enemy was the outside - that total absence of the things to support life that emptiness called space. It was evil and they feared it - constantly. A rod and staff might comfort in the presence of space, but what you dreamed about was washed air and a womblike enclosed cell where you could divest yourself of the damnable suit. This was the true source of comfort no matter if it came from the Devil himself. — Frank Herbert

The difference between play and what is regarded as serious employment should be not a difference between the presence and absence of imagination, but a difference in the materials with which imagination is occupied. — John Dewey

If your presence doesn't make an impact, your absence won't make a difference. — Trey Smith

It had formerly been my endeavor to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid. — Charlotte Bronte

There is By my leaning over the precipice Of your presence and your absence in hopeless fusion My finding the secret Of loving you Always for the first time — Andre Breton

Sin and grace, absence and presence, tragedy and comedy, they divide the world between them and where they meet head on, the Gospel happens. — Frederick Buechner

The purity of man is the absence of something, the purity of Jesus is the presence of something. — Ravi Zacharias

Peace is not the absence of agony
But the presence of joy of harmony — Debasish Mridha

I usually become a ghost to
those who no longer deserve
my time. I've never seen a point
in explaining my absence to
someone who failed to
appreciate my presence. You
don't owe any explanations to
those who hurt you. — R H Sin

I believe that answers your questions," Sheriff Heath said, returning to his seat.
A brawny Italian man in the back of the room said, "No, sir, I didn't get an answer to my question about marriage proposals."
I jumped up before Sheriff Heath could. These reporters needed to see that I could speak for myself. "The presence or absence of suitors in the lives of the Kopp sisters has no bearing on this matter," I told them, "and I see no men here today who would stand a chance with any one of us. — Amy Stewart

Birdie's presence was gentle and quiet, but her absence is violent. — Lauren DeStefano

Women tend to love men in their presence, while men tend to love women in their absence. — Sherry Argov

You are the average of the people you spend the most time with. And that's why it's not always where you are in life, but who you have by your side that matters most. Some people drain you and others provide soul food. Spend more time with nice people who are smart, driven and open-minded about personal growth and opportunity. There's no need to rush into a relationship you are unsure of, or socialize with those who hold you back. Be sure to get in the company of those who feed your spirit, and give the gift of your absence to those who do not appreciate your presence. — John Geiger

The contradiction is resolved when you realize that for Jesus peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle, but the presence of love. -p83 — Frederick Buechner

Sixteen years as a freelance features journalist taught me that neither the absence of 'the Muse' nor the presence of 'the block' should be allowed to hinder the orderly progress of a book. — Jim Crace

I only have one story now.
The story was heroin. It was made out of sensation, not words; it was invisible and murderous and unstoppable. Sam disappeared from her slowly, like a snowman melting, until all Blanca had left of him was a pool of freezing-cold blue water, arctic cold, sorrow colored, evaporating with every year. She did her best to hold onto him, but it was impossible, like carrying ice into the desert or making time stand still. After the final fight when Sam moved out, Blanca saw him less and less often. He no longer had a presence; he was like the outline of a person, an absence rather than a full-fledged human being. — Alice Hoffman

Yet Clare's love was doubtless ethereal to a fault, imaginative to impracticability. With these natures, corporeal presence is sometimes less appealing than corporeal absence; the latter creating an ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects of the real. — Thomas Hardy

Sustaining grace promises not the absence of struggle but the presence of God. — Max Lucado

The rewards of integrity are immeasurable. One is the indescribable inner peace and serenity that come from knowing we are doing what is right; another is an absence of the guilt and anxiety that accompany sin. Another reward of integrity is the confidence it can give us in approaching God. When virtue garnishes our thoughts unceasingly, our confidence is strong in the presence of God. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Beware of those who speak ill of others in your presence; don't be surprised of what they say about you in your absence. — A.J. Garces

The ability to make a decision doesn't require the absence of doubt or fear. Both vanish in the presence of responsibility, which emerges naturally in the presence of will. When we know what we truly want, the doubts that blur our decisions, the fears that make us succumb to luck and fate, all become secondary in the face of reason. That's when we understand that our freewill and our options weren't really there. We have created both by desire. The decision is basically conscience asking us to act on our subconscious desires. — Robin Sacredfire

In schools the main problem is not the absence of innovations but the presence of too many disconnected ... piecemeal, superficially adorned projects ... We are over our heads. — Michael Fullan

Peace is not the absence of chaos. It is the presence of tranquility and joy in the midst of chaos. — Debasish Mridha

I think I've got a peculiar disease. I call it the curse of history, and it has to do with the fugitive absence/presence of both personal and collective memory. At first I thought it was a kind of personal illness, just related to time, private time, time that passes in one's life. So I decided to forget and throw myself into the future. — Gilles Peress

Work for a cause David, not for applause.
Remember to live your life to express, not to impress, don't strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt. - Lichtenstein — Grace Lichtenstein

Alice cold make no sense of the despair into which she had fallen. She had always held that happiness should be defined as an absence of pain rather than the presence of pleasure. So why, with a decent job, good health, and a roof over her head, did she regularly and so childishly collapse into moist sobs? — Alain De Botton

The psychological fact of suggestion is that if statements are made again and again in a confident manner, without argument or proof, then their hearers will tend to believe them quite independently of their soundness and of the presence or absence of evidence for their truth. — Robert H. Thouless

Let love take hold of you and change you. At first through its presence then through its absence. — Elif Shafak

Everybody pays the heart lip service, of course, but everybody is more familiar with the absence of love than with its presence and gets so used to the feeling of emptiness that it becomes "normal." You don't miss the foundation of feeling until you begin to look for your self and can't find a support in the affects for a self. — Saul Bellow

It was not a great presence but a great absence, a geometric ocean of darkness that seemed to swallow heaven itself. — Laura Hillenbrand

Her absence is a presence, ghostly and haunting, touching all who knew her. It is impossible that she disappeared, inconceivable that she will never return. She is at once nowhere and everywhere, a constant shadow, elusory and insubstantial, her life an unkept promise, a half-remembered dream. — Christina Baker Kline

The silence of God's voice will make you wonder if He is even there. And the absence of God's presence will make you wonder if He even cares. He is. And He does. — Charles R. Swindoll

Solitude in the city is about the lack of other people or rather their distance beyond a door or wall, but in remote places it isn't an absence but the presence of something else, a kind of humming silence in which solitude seems as natural to your species as to any other, words strange rocks you may or may not turn over. — Rebecca Solnit

Good health is not the absence of symptoms, it is the presence of peace. — Neale Donald Walsch

Abyss is not an absence
Though presence be destroyed. — Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Peace is not the absence of violence or war; it is the presence of kindness, compassion, love, and care. — Debasish Mridha

Anything whose presence or absence makes no discernible difference is no essential part of the whole. — Aristotle.

Not thinking about it much is not proof of healing, nor is the ability to speak about your painful event indifferently. The absence of one or presence of the other proves nothing. — Amber Lynn Natusch

Many are observing Ferguson and witnessing the anger, demonstrations, looting and vandalism and calling for quiet. But quiet isn't enough. The absence of noise isn't the presence of justice - and we must demand justice in Ferguson and the other 'Fergusons' around America. — Jesse Jackson

He stood at the foot of the grave, gloved hands clasped behind him, his dark clothes and hair blending into one black silhouette, as if he were not a presence but an absence, a hole cut out of the landscape. — Amanda DeWees