Chasms Quotes & Sayings

There is, it seems, an unbridgeable chasm between the concerns of a Sri Aurobindo and a Pat Robertson. — B.W. Powe

Winds flap the sail, tortoise and snake are silent, a great plan looms. A bridge will fly over this moat dug by heaven and be a road from north to south. We will make a stone wall against the upper river to the west and hold back steamy clouds and rain of Wu peaks. Over tall chasms will be a calm lake, and if the goddess of these mountains is not dead she will marvel at the changed world. — Mao Zedong

Real happiness comes from a deeper place, not from anything external. The freshest and best water flows from the deepest, darkest chasms of the mountain. Likewise, true happiness flows from the hidden places of the human heart. — Bobby Schuller

Who can calculate the trajectory of a molecule? How do we know the creation of worlds is not determined by the falling of grains of sand? Who, after all, knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely big and the infinitely small, the reverberation of causes in the chasms of a being, the avalanches of creation? A — Victor Hugo

Pure religion is having the courage to do what is right and let the consequence follow. — Neal A. Maxwell

Pay closer attention to road. Try not to look at the woods on either side of you. Try not to stare into the endless vacuum. You know what happens if you stare into those chasms. They envelop you. They become you, and you become a part of them. You become a part of nothing. — Connor De Bruler

Acheron the River of Death:
Healed souls in the wake of the vessel;
My Obolus,
He will not redound to the glory of those.
Those who drown in the Acheron;
out loud hands -
that is our downfall,
They scream out of desperate chasms. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Rincewind looked up at the tall black figure that had appeared a few feet away. It was, of course, Death. He turned his glowing eyesockets toward Rincewind and said, in a voice like the collapse of undersea chasms, GOOD AFTERNOON. — Terry Pratchett

I'd rather walk these chasms with a compulsive murderer than you. At least then, when the conversation got tedious, I'd have an easy way out."
"And your feet stink," [Shallan] said. "See? Too early. I can't possibly be witty at this hour. So no arguments." She hesitated, then continued more softly. "Besides, no murderer would agree to accompany you. Everyone needs to have some standards, after all. — Brandon Sanderson

But in truth, the world is constantly shifting: shape and size, location in space. It's got edges and chasms, too many to count. They open up, close, reappear somewhere else. Geologists nay have mapped out the planet's tectonic plates -hidden shelves of rock that grind, one against the other, forming mountains, creating continents - but thy can't plot the fault lines that run through our heads, divide out hearts.
The map of the world is always changing; sometimes it happens overnight. All it takes is the blink of an eye, the squeeze of a trigger, a sudden gust of wind. Wake up and your life is perched on a precipice; fall asleep, it swallows you whole — Anderson Cooper

War was about yawning chasms of inactivity, punctuated by brief, screaming interludes of action. And in those brief, screaming interludes, events happened both quickly and with dreamlike slowness, every instant burned into memory. — Alastair Reynolds

Perhaps there is no other way of reaching some understanding of being than through art? Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope. To say this is not to mystify the process of writing but to make an image out of the intense inner concentration the writer must have to cross the chasms of the aleatory and make them the word's own, as an explorer plants a flag. — Nadine Gordimer

I will tell you it simply: he felt he was falling. He felt he fell through a succession of wells, of holes, of chasms, and that I was there at windows, and we would be together for a moment as he fell by. Then I would rush to the next window , down and down, and he would fall past, and I would see him again. — Jesse Ball

A compass, I learnt when I was surveying, it'll ... it'll point you true north from where you're standing, but it's got no advice about the swamps, deserts and chasms that you'll encounter along the way. If in pursuit of your destination, you plunge ahead heedless of obstacles, and achieve nothing more than to sink in a swamp, what's the use of knowing true north? — Tony Kushner

They could not help loving anything that made them laugh. The Lisbon earthquake was "embarrassing to the physicists and humiliating to theologians" (Barbier). It robbed Voltaire of his optimism. In the huge waves which engulfed the town, in the chasms which opened underneath it, in volcanic flames which raged for days in the outskirts, some 50,000 people perished. But to the courtiers of Louis XV it was an enormous joke. M. de Baschi, Madame de Pompadour's brother-in-law, was French Ambassador there at the time. He saw the Spanish Ambassador killed by the arms of Spain, which toppled onto his head from the portico of his embassy; Baschi then dashed into the house and rescued his colleague's little boy whom he took, with his own family, to the country. When he got back to Versailles he kept the whole Court in roars of laughter for a week with his account of it all. "Have you heard Baschi on the earthquake? — Nancy Mitford

Ungrace causes cracks to fissure open between mother and daughter, father and son, brother and sister, between scientists, and prisoners, and tribes, and races. Left alone, cracks widen, and for the resulting chasms of ungrace there is only one remedy: the frail rope-bridge of forgiveness. — Philip Yancey

There were fissures and chasms in the walls and floor, and every now and then a crack would open right before their feet. The widest was more than seven feet across, and it was long before Pippin could summon enough courage to leap over the dreadful gap. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I spend several years trying to get inside the brain and heart of my subjects, listening to the interior monologues in their letters, and when I have to bridge the chasms between the factual evidence, I try to make an intuitive leap through the eyes and motivation of the person I'm writing about. — Irving Stone

You're an odd one, son."
"The normal ones are dead in the chasms, sir. — Brandon Sanderson

Some people we glimpse as chasms, briefly but deeply, even to the death of us. Others are shallow places you never seem to get across. — Denis Johnson

Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience. — Charlotte Bronte

The problem [with genetic research] is, we're just starting down this path, feeling our way in the dark. We have a small lantern in the form of a gene, but the lantern doesn't penetrate more than a couple of hundred feet. We don't know whether we're going to encounter chasms, rock walls or mountain ranges along the way. We don't even know how long the path is. — Francis Collins

Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms. — Nicolaus Copernicus

The Irish sea is a chasm, and it just depends who's been holding the whip for 800 years and who's been under it for 800 years. — Noam Chomsky

For a moment Tess felt her strange, inappropriate happiness teeter. It was as though she were balanced on a narrow crevice surrounded by chasms of grief. One wrong thought and down she'd tumble. — Liane Moriarty

His thoughts skirted Sandy and especially Grace as if they were fatal chasms into which he might tumble. — Anthony Doerr

Passionately obsessed by anything we love
an avalanche of magic flattens the way ahead, levels, rules, reasons, dissents, bears us with it over chasms, fears, doubts. Without the power of that love ... — Richard Bach

If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. — Loren Eiseley

We humans have always needed rituals to draw like curtains over the chasms of the unknown. Without them we go mad, I think. — Patricia J. Williams

Anyone intent on moral clarity might want to find another book and, in fact, might not want to go anywhere near the enduring chasm of race in the United States. — Timothy B. Tyson

An ambition which has conscience in it will always be a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road, and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success by the most faithful and minute performances of duty. — Henry Ward Beecher

Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being. — Gary Kowalski

They only think they think. No total vision, total system, merely schemes with a vague family resemblance, no more identity than bridges and, say, spiderwebs. But they rush across chasms on spiderwebs, and sometimes they make it, and that, they think, settles that! — John Gardner

Consider the simple hedgehog, and his neighbor, the opossum ... do they waste their energy trying to throw one another into chasms when they face a common enemy, the winter? No! — Ransom Riggs

Contradictions are the impossible chasms that create forever separations. God is the forever bridge that creates impossible reunions. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Love is the only force that can erase the differences between people or bridge the chasms of bitterness. — Gordon B. Hinckley

One foot in Austria, the other in Italy, it's funny how man defines borders. An imaginary line is all that is needed to split continents apart, to separate men and cultures, to spark wars and injustices - a line in pencil, drawn on some agreement or a peace treaty ages ago. Insanity, it's nothing but insanity. Free movement of man, something that is and has been ingrained in our essence of being, is nothing more than an illusion. We are not free to walk where we please; we are not capable of overcoming the resistance of these imaginary lines, etching deep chasms into the face of the world. — Henry Martin

Art - in all of its forms - is not exclusive. It does not belong to any class, cast or country. Its matchless ability to express the most basic human impulses is only strengthened by its universality. It transcends language and culture, bridges social and political chasms and nurtures a collective understanding. It engenders hope, rebuilds self-respect and restores humanity. Art is a motivator, a force of empowerment and a source of support for people of all races, nationalities, ages, economic situations and genders. It is ageless, timeless and breaks through many barriers. Art brings strength to those who lack confidence, wish for a mental escape from harsh environments or who seek to restore happiness and hope in times of great need." Artfully AWARE 5 — Artfully Aware

One cannot leap a chasm in two jumps. — Winston Churchill

Worst fears: That God was not good. That the earth you stood upon shifted, and chasms yawned; that people, falling, clutched one another for help and none was forthcoming. That the basis of all things was evil. That the beauty of the evening, now settling in a yellow glow on the stone of The Cottage barns, the swallows dipping and soaring, a sudden host of butterflies in the long grasses in the foreground, was a lie; a deceitful sheen on which hopeful visions flitted momentarily, and that long, long ago evil had won against good, death over life... in the glow of the sun against the stone walls, as well as in the dancing of butterflies- that in this she had been mocked. — Fay Weldon

Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. — George Eliot

Within the eye, mysteries of the soul burn deeply beneath the fiery chasms of love and patiently wait for an awakening ... — Virginia Alison

Learn this from the waters: in mountain clefts and chasms, loud gush the streamlets, but great rivers flow silently. — Gautama Buddha

The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us. — Nelson Mandela

Chasms are deceived by rumors of their depth. — Marty Rubin

Percy glanced over. He saw the fallen giant and seemed to understand what was happening. He yelled something that was lost in the wind, probably: Go!
Then he slammed Riptide into the ice at his feet. The entire glacier shuddered. Ghosts fell to their knees. Behind Percy, a wave surged up from the bay-a wall of gray water even taller than the glacier. Water shot from the chasms and crevices in the ice. As the wave hit, the back half of the camp crumbled. The entire edge of the glacier peeled away, cascading into the void-carrying buildings, ghosts, and Percy Jackson over the edge. — Rick Riordan

If you could see into a woman's heart you'd be shocked at the cracks and chasms of self-doubt, fear, and pain it holds. It's a wreck and yet it manages to love like it's never been broken. — Toni Sorenson

Trite though it (used to) sound, real sexuality is about our struggles to connect with one another, to erect bridges across the chasms that separate selves. Sexuality is, finally, about imagination. Thanks to brave people's recognition of AIDS as a fact of life, we are beginning to realize that highly charged sex can take place in all sorts of ways we'd forgotten or neglected - in a conversational nuance; in a body's posture, a certain pressure in a held hand. Sex can be everywhere we are, all the time. — David Foster Wallace

I walk into the night forest. I reach out my hands on either side. I can feel the smooth bark of the Red Alder trees and the rough chasms of mature Douglas Fir, and then I can feel the stringy fibrous bark of the Western Red Cedar. I can push my fingers into the Cedar bark; it is like cloth to my fingertips. But here and there I can also feel the lacelike fingers of Hemlock and the prickly needles of Spruce touching my face and my neck. — Ned Hayes

She decided to watch the leaves on the tree across the way. How many would fall off in such a strong wind? ... She now knew why people made such a fuss about weddings. It was to keep the bride's mind occupied, lest she fall into strange mental chasms. — Julia Quinn

The face before him was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was smooth, with a black strip of cloth tied over its forehead, and yet it was deeply furrowed, like the sea, that can have tall waves but not a wrinkle on the surface. The eyes were like dark chasms and yet they were the eyes of a human being and not empty sockets. The skin was a greenish olive colour and looked as if it were made of bronze ... — Gustav Meyrink

Does the human heart know chasms so abysmal? — Alan Moore

I read what I'd written and thought once again: from what violent chasms is my most intimate intimacy nourished, why does it deny itself so much and flee to the domain of ideas? I feel within me a subterranean violence, a violence that only comes to the surface during the act of writing. — Clarice Lispector

The focus of gap analysis should be getting to the other side. If you bend-over to analyze a gap too long, you'll probably fall into it. — Ryan Lilly

There are huge divorces and divides and chasms in black America between the have-gots and the have-nots, between the monied and the poor, between the educated and the non-educated. And there are huge and growing chasms daily. And I want to say that it's not simply about generation. It's about genre. — Michael Eric Dyson

Please," she whispered, sounding more frantic. "Don't leave me down in these chasms alone."
He smiled wryly. "Is it really this hard for you to let me win one single argument?"
"Yes! — Brandon Sanderson

Sometimes to see your work's rightful place you have to walk to the edge of the precipice and search the deep chasms. You have to see that the universe is not formless and dark throughout, but awaits simply the revealing light of your own mind. Your art does not arrive miraculously from the darkness, but is made uneventfully in the light. What — David Bayles

Unfortunately, being physically equipped to hear has little to do with the actual predilection to listen. Sharing a common tongue does not ensure earnest or successful communication. Missed connections occur among hearing people all the time, splitting open countless minor chasms and yawning gulches, fissures that no vaccine or technilogical advance will ever be able to mend or prevent. That task will always fail to us. — Leah Hager Cohen

It is hard to describe to you but I swear it was a fearsome sight. There were not eyes to speak of, but chasms that saw into its dark depths. A shade of a mouth full with phantom teeth. There seemed to be a skull shifting in and out of form beneath the black. Bound together by an unspeakable evil. — Solange Nicole

But the cracks were splitting, finding power, thickening into chasms. — Anthony Doerr

Vulgarized knowledge characteristically gives birth to a feeling that everything is understandable and explained. It is like a system of bridges built over chasms. One can travel boldly ahead over these bridges, ignoring the chasms. It is forbidden to look down into them; but that, alas, does not alter the fact that they exist. — Czeslaw Milosz

One felt that the mountains are not completed. The builders are still at work. Stones come rolling and jumping from the upper scaffolding and often from the chasms one hears the thundering as the gods of the mountains change their minds. — J. E. H. MacDonald

The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason;
But still the heart doth need a language; still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names;
Spirits or gods that used to share this earth
With man as with their friend; and at this day
'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,
And Venus who brings every thing that's fair. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

SPIDER-MAN (thinking): I can bench press a car. I can climb up the
side of a wall. Fight twenty guys to a standstill. Swing across chasms thirty stories deep. Feel a bullet coming my way and move fast enough to get clear. But something in her makes me gentle. Makes me shy. Makes me strong. Makes me happy to be alive. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's what it really comes down to. She makes me. Makes me whole ... She completes me ...
So here's the thing, God ... I know I complain a lot, and I know that you and me, we've got issues, but right now, just for tonight ... Thank you for her. Thank you. Amazing Spider-Man #53 (Volume 2) — J. Michael Straczynski

The inspection of these chasms brought him a second pulsation of that old horror which he had used to describe to Viviette as produced in him by bottomlessness in the north heaven. The ghostly finger of limitless vacancy touched him now on the other side. — Thomas Hardy