No Man's Sky Quotes & Sayings

It was an unusual sunset. Having sat behind opaque drapery all day, I had not realized that a storm was pushing in and that much of the sky was the precise shade of old suits of armor one finds in museums. At the same time, patches of brilliance engaged in a territorial dispute with the oncoming onyx of the storm. Light and darkness mingled in strange ways both above and below. Shadows and sunshine washed together, streaking the landscape with an unearthly study of glare and gloom. Bright clouds and black folded into each other in a no-man's land of the sky. The autumn trees took on the appearance of sculptures formed in a dream, their leaden-colored trunks and branches and iron-red leaves all locked in an infinite and unliving moment, unnaturally timeless. The gray lake slowly tossed and tumbled in a dead sleep, nudging unconsciously against its breakwall of numb stone. A scene of contradiction and ambivalence, a tragicomedic haze over all. A land of perfect twilight. — Thomas Ligotti

Under the stress of the event, we felt, each man's true nature was revealed. The impression we had of each candidate's character was as direct and compelling as the color of the sky." He had had no trouble identifying which men would make good officers and which would not. "We were quite willing to declare, 'This one will never make it,' 'That fellow is rather mediocre,' or 'He will be a star.'" The problem came when he'd tested his predictions against the outcomes - how the various candidates had actually performed in officer training. His predictions were worthless. And yet, because it was the army and he had a job to do, he kept on making them; and because he was Danny, he noted that he still felt confident about them. — Michael Lewis

He dresses himself in tight black jeans, Amoco shirt, and polished cowboy boots. His profile sharp as a jackknife, mirror shades throwing back the world, Ben walks hard into town. No one sees him pass. The sky over his head seems to hide the man. He is New Harmony's secret messiah. A small apocalypse lives in his limbs. — Paul Jaskunas

Virtuous man, contrived conceptualizations come from the existence of a mind, which is a conditioned [conglomeration of] the six sense objects. The conditioned impressions of deluded thoughts are not the true essence of mind; rather, they are like flowers in the sky. The discernment of the realm of Buddhahood with such conceptualization is comparable to the production of empty fruit by the empty flower. One merely revolves in this entanglement of deluded thoughts and gains no result. — Sheng Yen

Give me your trust, said the Aes Sedai.
On my shoulders I support the sky.
Trust me to know and to do what is best,
And I will take care of the rest.
But trust is the color of a dark seed growing.
Trust is the color of a heart's blood flowing.
Trust is the color of a soul's last breath.
Trust is the color of death.
Give me your trust said the queen on her throne,
for I must bear the burden alone.
Trust me to lead and to judge and to rule, and no man will think you a fool.
But trust is the sound of the grave-dog's bark.
Trust is the sound of betrayal in the dark.
Trust is the sound of a soul's last breath.
Trust is the sound of death. — Robert Jordan

In the early evening time Dr. Kemp was sitting in his study in the belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little room, with three windows - north, west, and south - and bookshelves covered with books and scientific publications, and a broad writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of reagents. Dr. Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down. Dr. Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think of it. — H.G.Wells

Is one of those summer evenings, when it look like night would never come, a magnificent evening, a powerful evening, rent finish paying, rations in the cupboard, twenty pounds in the bank, and a nice piece of skin waiting under the big clock in Piccadilly Tube Station. The sky blue, sun shining, the girls ain't have on no coats to hide the legs.
"Mummy, look at that black man!" A little child, holding on to the mother hand, look up at Sir Galahad.
"You mustn't say that, dear!" The mother chide the child. — Samuel Selvon

PLASTIC ANIMALS


The modern day idols and animal gods
Embrace higher platforms in the sky
Than the statues of the gods of the ancients.
They beam through our screens
And we scream for them to be seen
And we cry if they aren't covering the pages.
We care more about a celebrity
Than the man who saved
An island of a million drowning men!
Eliminate these plastic idols and bloated gods
That represent nothing but shame.
And shame on us for allowing them to be seen
In a divine manner.
No man is to ever be put on a pedestal,
If he/she is not a prime example of the right way,
Has nothing to say,
Or simply has the money to buy
A rotating banner. — Suzy Kassem

You could expect many things of God at night when the campfire burned before the tents. You could look through and beyond the veils of scarlet and see shadows of the world as God first made it and hear the voices of the beasts He put there. It was a world as old as Time, but as new as Creation's hour had left it.
In a sense it was formless. When the low stars shone over it and the moon clothed it in silver fog, it was the way the firmament must have been when the waters had gone and the night of the Fifth Day had fallen on creatures still bewildered by the wonder of their being. It was an empty world because no man had yet joined sticks to make a house or scratched the earth to make a road or embedded the transient symbols of his artifice in the clean horizon. But it was not a sterile world. It held the genesis of life and lay deep and anticipant under the sky. — Beryl Markham

The amorous shepherd has lost his staff,
And his sheep are straying on the hillside,
And he didn't even play the flute he brought to play because he was thinking so much.
No one came to him or went away. He never found his staff again.
Others, cursing at him, gathered his sheep for him.
No one had loved him, in the end.

When he got up from the hillside and the false truth, he saw everything:
The great valleys full of the same green as always,
The great distant mountains, more real than any feeling,
All reality, with the sky and the air and the fields that exist, is present.
(And once again the air, that he'd missed for so long, entered coolly into his lungs)
And he felt that the air was opening again, but with pain, a liberty in his chest.

(7/10/1930) — Alberto Caeiro

The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing left but reverie. He enters God's theater free; he sees the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, the humanity in which he suffers, the creation in which he shines. He looks at humanity so much that he sees the soul, he looks at creation so much that he sees God. He dreams, he feels that he is great; he dreams some more, and he feels that he is tender. From the egotism of the suffering man, he passes to the compassion of the contemplating man. A wonderful feeling springs up within him, forgetfulness of self, and pity for all. In thinking of the countless enjoyments nature offers, gives, and gives lavishly to open souls and refuses to closed souls, he, a millionaire of intelligence, comes to grieve for the millionaires of money. All hatred leaves his heart as all light enters his mind. And is he unhappy? No. The poverty of a young man is never miserable. — Victor Hugo

How many stars can you count in the sky? How many mistakes can you count in your life? Stop counting! No clever man ever is stuck in the past! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea. — Ernest Hemingway,

He believed in something larger than himself, but there was no evidence to point to someone or something listening to a man with brown leather shoes and a sweaty shirt. He didn't find this unusual or disturbing. Why should he be noticed when there were so many others to notice? It was like the dry blades of grass at his feet. Every blade was different, reaching for the sky in its own humble way, but from a goat's perspective, they were all the same: something to eat. — Eleanor Morse

Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Our children will be born of our actions. Our accidents will become their destinies. Oh, the actions will remain. It is a simple matter of what you will do when the chips are down, my friend. When the fat lady is singing. When the walls are falling in, and the sky is dark, and the ground is rumbling. In that moment our actions will define us. And it makes no difference whether you are being watched by Allah, Jesus, Buddah, or whether you are not. On cold days a man can see his breath, on a hot day he can't. On both occasions, the man breathes. — Zadie Smith

I want you to understand something. That man? He's not some boyfriend in a line of them. He is my alpha and omega. He is the sky over me. Without him, I'm lost. There's no one else, no one whose soul balances mine the way his does. I've waited my life for him, and when he came, I didn't recognize him. Not until recently. If I lose him, I swear, as God is my witness, I will be alone. No man can match him. — C.D. Reiss

We're at 103,000 feet. Looking out over a very beautiful, beautiful world ... a hostile sky. As you look up the sky looks beautiful but hostile. As you sit here you realize that Man will never conquer space. He will learn to live with it, but he will never conquer it. Can see for over 400 miles. Beneath me I can see the clouds ... They are beautiful ... looking through my mirror the sky is absolutely black. Void of anything ... I can see the beautiful blue of the sky and above that it goes into a deep, deep, dark, indescribable blue which no artist can ever duplicate. It's fantastic. — Joseph Kittinger

God answered our question before we asked it. So we'd see his answer, he lit the sky with a star. So we'd hear it, he filled the night with a choir. So we'd believe it, he did what no man had ever dreamed. He became flesh and came to live among us. He — Max Lucado

The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way. — Laozi

There are also those who inadvertently grant power to another man's words by continuously trying to spite him. If a man gets to the point where he can simply say, 'The sky is blue,' and people indignantly rush up trying to refute him saying, 'No, the sky is light blue,' then, whether they realize it or not, he has become an authority figure even to such adversaries. — Criss Jami

There is only the one like me, the companion man or woman, who can wake me from my torpor, set off the poetry, hurl me against the limits of the old desert for me to triumph over it. No other. Neither sky nor privileged earth, now things which set you to trembling.
Torch, I only waltz with that one. — Rene Char

Black ia the color that is no color at all.
Black is the color of a child's still, empty bedroom. The heaviest hour of night - the one that traps you in your bunk, suffocating in another nightmare. It is a uniform stretched over the broad shoulders of an angry young man. Black is the mud, the lidless eye watching your every breath, the low vibrations of the fence that stretches up to tear at the sky. — Alexandra Bracken

One was watching the other day a red-tailed hawk, high in the heavens, circling effortlessly, without a beat of the wing, just for the fun of flying, just to be sustained by the air-currents. Then it was joined by another, and they were flying together for quite a while. They were marvellous creatures in that blue sky, and to hurt them in any way is a crime against heaven. Of course there is no heaven; man has invented heaven out of hope, for his life has become a hell, an endless conflict from birth to death, coming and going, making money, working endlessly. This life has become a turmoil, a travail of endless striving. One wonders if man, a human being, will ever live on this earth peacefully. Conflict has been the way of his life - within the skin and outside the skin, in the area of the psyche and in the society which that psyche has created. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

What a night it was! The jagged masses of heavy dark cloud were rolling at intervals from horizon to horizon, and thin white wreaths covered the stars. Through all the rush of the cloud river the moon swam, breasting the waves and disappearing again in the darkness.
I walked up and down, drinking in the beauty of the quiet earth and the changing sky. The night was absolutely silent. Nothing seemed to be abroad. There was no scurrying of rabbits, or twitter of the half-asleep birds. And though the clouds went sailing across the sky, the wind that drove them never came low enough to rustle the dead leaves in the woodland paths. Across the meadows I could see the church tower standing out black and grey against the sky. ("Man Size In Marble") — E. Nesbit

The man wrote his message.
Are you really a boy, like Xash says? the god asked Arin. You've been mine for twenty years. I raised you.
The Valorian signed the scrap of paper.
Cared for you.
The message was rolled, sealed, and pushed into a tiny leather tube.
Watched over you when you thought you were alone.
The captain tied the tube to a hawk's leg. The bird was too large to be a kestrel. It didn't have a kestrel's markings. It cocked its head, turning its glass-bead eyes on Arin.
No, not a boy. A man made in my image ... one who knows he can't afford to be seen as weak.
The hawk launched into the sky.
You're mine, Arin. You know what you must do.
Arin cut the Valorian's throat. — Marie Rutkoski

Where we come from does not determine who we can become. What we look like places no limits on what we can achieve. We should all have the right to express ourselves, all have the right to be heard, all have the right to be what we can be: To reach for the sky and touch the stars. No matter who we are, no matter whether we are man or woman, or rich or poor:
My voice, my right. My voice counts. — Desmond Tutu

One night she got into an argument with one of the scientists about the recent discovery of a new planet called Uranus [ ... ] 'What did he really do? The man spends his time stargazing, that's all. And now he's elected a fellow of the Royal Society! For nothing. You know, Sir Giles [ ... ] Sir Giles identified the genus of the Purple Swamphen. Now that's a good reason to become a Fellow. This man just looks at the sky and notices a star. Bah!'
'But we need to map the night sky,' Harriet said. 'We have to understand our world. And stars are no different than wings on a butterfly, to me. — Eloisa James

At twenty-nine, life no longer held any brightness for him, but Voltaire supplied him with man-made wings.
Spreading these man-made wings, he soared with ease into the sky. The higher he flew, the farther below him sank the joys and sorrows of a life bathed in the light of the intellect. Dropping ironies and smiles upon the shabby towns below, he climbed through the open sky, straight for the sun
as if he had forgotten about that ancient Greek who plunged to his death in the ocean when his man-made wings were singed by the sun."
-from "The Life of a Stupid Man — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

The world is a better place to live in because it contains human beings who will give up ease and security in order to do what they themselves think worth doing. They do the useless, brave, noble, divinely foolish, and the very wisest things that are done by Man. And what they prove to themselves and to others is that Man is no mere creature of his habits, no automaton in his routine, but that in the dust of which he is made there is also fire, lighted now and then by great winds from the sky. — Walter Lippmann

It is common knowledge that a well-bred man should as far as possible have no face. That is to say, not so much be completely without one, but rather, should have a face and yet at the same time appear faceless. It should not stand out, just as a shirt made by a good tailor does not stand out. Needless to say, the face of a well-bred man should be exactly like that of other (well-bred) men and of course in no circumstances whatsoever should it alter. Naturally houses, trees, streets, sky and everything else in the world must satisfy the same conditions to have honor of being known as respectable and well-bred. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck. — Andrew Ryan

A ghost wants revenge, a demon wants your soul, a shamble-man is hungry and cold. It makes them less terrible. Things we understand we can try to control. But Chandrian come like lightning from a clear blue sky. Just destruction. No rhyme or reason to it. — Patrick Rothfuss

There is a certain kind of man who is forever searching. He wanders from place to place, he looks hard into the eyes of women and men in every town, maybe he scratches the earth or wields a gun, remedies illnesses or writes books, and there is always a vague emptiness within him. It is the emptiness that drives him and he does not know even how to name that thing that might fill it. No idea of home or love or peace comes to him. He does not know, so he cannot stop. On and on he moves. and the emptiness blinds him and pulls at him and he is like a newborn baby searching for the teat, knowing it is there, but where?
And sometimes such a man is handed a gift. A gift of direction. A path that is marked for him and there, yes, this will ease your suffering, it is sure. This will cure you, it will fill you up, at least for a time. There will be a home, and love, there will no longer be the sorrow when you look at a cold night sky, the sorrow as the sun rises and the mist burns away. — Tara Conklin

There are times I look around and it seems the world is so ugly, and I just can't seem to see the earth's natural beauty anymore, but when my eyes look up to the ethereal sky, I am reminded of the major contrast between Gods brilliant creations and human beings man-made imitations, and there is no comparison. — Delano Johnson

Once upon a time the world was a realm of unanswered questions and there was room in it for poetry. Man stood beneath the sky and he asked "why?". And his question was beautiful.

The new world will be a place of answers and no questions, because the only questions left will be answered by computers, because only computers will know what to ask.

Perhaps that is the way it has to be. — James Cameron

And somewhere in that crimson-colored never-never land where i pirouetted madly, in a wild and crazy effort to exhaust myself into insensibility, i saw that man, shadowy and distant, half-hidden behind towering white columns that rose clear up to a purple sky. In a passionate pas de deux he danced with me, forever apart, no matter how hard i sought to draw nearer and leap into his arms, where i could feel them protective about me, supporting me ... and with him i'd find, at last, a safe place to live and love. — V.C. Andrews

I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!.. And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason. — Eugene O'Neill

There's no one with intelligence in this town except that man over there playing with the children, the one riding the stick horse. He has keen, fiery insight and vast dignity like the night sky, but he conceals it in the madness of child's play. — Rumi

For no man under the sky lives twice — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Up there in the sky.
Don't you see him?
No, not the moon.
The Man in the Moon.
He wasn't always a man.
Nor was he always on the moon.
He was once a child.
Like you.
Until a battle,
a shooting star,
and a lost balloon
led him on a quest.
Meet the very first
Guardian of Childhood.
MiM, the Man in the Moon. — William Joyce

The Lama of the Crystal Monastery appears to be a very happy man, and yet I wonder how he feels about his isolation in the silences of Tsakang, which he has not left in eight years now and, because of his legs, may never leave again. Since Jang-bu seems uncomfortable with the Lama or with himself or perhaps with us, I tell him not to inquire on this point if it seems to him impertinent, but after a moment Jang-bu does so. And this holy man of great directness and simplicity, big white teeth shining, laughs out loud in an infectious way at Jang-bu's question. Indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness, as if they belonged to all of us, he casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains, the high sun and dancing sheep, and cries, Of course I am happy here! It's wonderful! Especially when I have no choice! — Peter Matthiessen

To be able to see and study undisturbed the processes of nature--I like better the old Biblical phrase "mighty works"--is an opportunity for which any man might feel reverent gratitude, and here at last, in this silence and isolation of winter, a whole region was mine whose innermost natural life might shape itself to its ancient courses without the hindrance and interferences of man. No one came to kill, no one came to explore, no one even came to see. Earth, ocean, and sky, the triune unity of this coast, pursued each one their vast and mingled purposes as untroubled by man as a planet on its course about the sun. — Henry Beston

I Miss You Outside the sun is shining, and the roses are in bloom. The sky this morning is so lovely, but here I sit in gloom. Outside the birds are singing, but in here, no beauty resides. For my heart is empty, shattered and broken, and will be 'til you're back by my side. Honey, I miss you every morning, and at night when I go to bed. I remember the times you were with me, and all the things that we said. And I miss your touch; the touch that makes me feel so much a man. I miss the smell of your hair, and the softness of your hands. I miss holding you in my arms and feeling your lips on mine. I miss hearing your sweet voice, which sounds so loving and kind. But most of all, I miss your warm tender body next to me as I sleep. I feel so empty when you're not here; I lie awake all night and weep. Because without your love, my life is over and I'll spend the rest of it being blue. So please say you love me and come back; for sweetheart, I miss you. — Kenneth Edward Barnes

Beyond the East the sunrise, beyond the West the sea,
And East and West the wanderlust that will not let me be;
It works in me like madness, dear, to bid me say good-by!
For the seas call and the stars call, and oh, the call of the sky!

I know not where the white road runs, nor what the blue hills are,
But man can have the sun for friend, and for his guide a star;
And there's no end of voyaging when once the voice is heard,
For the river calls and the road calls, and oh, the call of a bird!

Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and day
The old ships draw to home again, the young ships sail away;
And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you why,
You may put the blame on the stars and the sun and the white road and the sky! — Gerald Gould

The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear sky. — Henry David Thoreau

My God, my God
May there be no end
To the sea, to the sand,
The splash of the water,
The glow of the sky,
The prayer of man — Hannah Senesh

One of the misconceptions about atheism is that it somehow means someone denies the possibility of a deity. In all actuality, it simply means you don't believe it to be the case - a point that should not be hard to understand with the complete lack of physical evidence that points to the existence of such a being or beings. Even if you're 51 percent sure that there is no magical man in the sky, you are an atheist; and admitting that is the first half of the battle. — David G. McAfee

Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures. — Mary Shelley

I got out late winter. I was off on the exact day by thirty-some hours, which is not bad calculations. I made the decision when I went in to keep track of the days, for the simple reason that it was the intention of my jailers to jettison my sense of time and place. They brought you in a metal truck with no windows and took you out in the same truck or one damned similar. The rumor was that Bell Federal Penitentiary was somewhere in the plains of the Montana-Saskatchewan annex. The sight from my cell would not have refuted this. The white of the snow and sky filled my eyes like the sheet pulled over the head of a dead man. If it was not Montana-Saskatchewan, then it was the North Pole, or the moon. It was a signal to anyone who's ever doubted the terror of an idea that almost all of us in this prison that had no time or place were utterly guiltless of a violent act, unless one counts the violence of tongues. — Steve Erickson

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best. — Dylan Thomas

No, no- the sky will grow dark, cold rain will fall and all trace of the right way will be blotted out. You will be all alone. And still you will have to go on. There will be ghosts in the dark and voices in the air, disgusting prophecies coming true I wouldn't wonder and absent faces present on every side, as the man said. And still you will have to go on. The last bridge will fall behind you and the last lights will go out, followed by the sun, the moon and the stars; and still you will have to go on. You will come to regions more desolate and wretched than you ever dreamed could exist, places of sorrow created entirely by that mean superstition which you yourself have put about for so long. But still you will have to go on — Richard Adams

On moonlight nights the long, straight street and dirty white walls, nowhere darkened by the shadow of a tree, their peace untroubled by footsteps or a dog's bark, glimmered in the pale recession. The silent city was no more than an assemblage of huge, inert cubes, between which only the mute effigies of great men, carapaced in bronze, with their blank stone or metal faces, conjured up a sorry semblance of what the man had been. In lifeless squares and avenues these tawdry idols lorded it under the lowering sky; stolid monsters that might have personified the rule of immobility imposed on us, or, anyhow, its final aspect, that of a defunct city in which plague, stone, and darkness had effectively silenced every voice. — Albert Camus

Sophie isn't leaving," Quentin asserted, his voice pure steel. "That woman sheds grace and light in every room she enters. Any man with a functional brain would try to catch a fragment of that grace and cherish it, rather than push her aside. I'm not sending her away. Were it in my power, I would cut the moon out of the sky and give it to her on a silver platter." Her notebook dropped from her nerveless fingers, splatting open on the tile floor. Quentin whirled around to see her standing in the doorway. If he was embarrassed to have been overheard, he gave no sign of it. On the contrary, his eyes that had been sparking with anger gentled the instant he saw her. She glanced away, rocked by the protective expression on Quentin's face. It shot straight to a vulnerable part deep inside and enveloped her with a sense of well-being. No man had ever spoken so passionately on her behalf, and a rush of wild, electrifying emotions stirred inside. — Elizabeth Camden

Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy- live or die- is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it- 'Thou art God!' — Robert A. Heinlein

No man has ever appreciated the gospel until the law has first revealed him to himself. It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin and judgment that the gospel shines forth. — John Stott

So he steeled himself and sent a wordless, desperate cry for aid up into the sky, hoping it would pierce the roof of the jail and the mantle of clouds and the net of stars behind that, venturing out beyond to where nothingness had no claim and there might be some consciousness, some intelligence that would listen and understand and sympathize. Something, just something. But it seemed unlikely that anything so vast would notice or care.
He was so small. A little man scrambling across the wilderness, trying to make the cosmos pay attention and make sense. In that midnight belly of the jail, dawn was a memory and the sun was no more than a dream, and hope tasted more of a curse to him than a blessing. — Robert Jackson Bennett

The witnessing soul is like the sky. The birds fly in the sky but they don't leave any footprints ... [The] man who is awakened lives in such a way that he leaves no footprints ... He never looks ahead, he never looks back, he lives in the moment. — Rajneesh

When I come out on the road of a morning, when I have had a night's sleep and perhaps a breakfast, and the sun lights a hill on the distance, a hill I know I shall walk across an hour or two thence, and it is green and silken to my eye, and the clouds have begun their slow, fat rolling journey across the sky, no land in the world can inspire such love in a common man. — Frank Delaney

He moved on from Anatole France to the eighteenth-century philosophers, though not to Rousseau. Perhaps this was because one side of him - the side easily moved by passion - was too close to Rousseau. Instead, he approached the author of 'Candide', who was closer to another side of him - the cool and richly intellectual side.
At twenty-nine, life no longer held any brightness for him, but Voltaire supplied him with man-made wings.
Spreading these man-made wings, he soared with ease into the sky. The higher he flew, the farther below him sank the joys and sorrows of a life bathed in the light of intellect. Dropping ironies and smiles upon the shabby towns below, he climbed through the open sky, straight for the sun - as if he had forgotten about that ancient Greek who plunged to his death in the ocean when his man-made wings were singed by the sun. — Ryunosuke Akutagawa

As they were traveling on the road someone said to Him, "I will follow You wherever You go! " 58 Jesus told him, "Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head." 59 Then He said to another, "Follow Me." "Lord," he said, "first let me go bury my father." 60 But He told him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God." 61 Another also said, "I will follow You, Lord, but first let me go and say good-bye to those at my house." 62 But Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. — Anonymous

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body. — Ayn Rand

I have a firm belief in such things as, you know, the water, the Earth, the trees and sky. And I'm wondering, it is increasingly difficult to find those elements in nature, because it's nature I believe in rather than some spiritual thing.
Interviewer: You're not a religious man?
No. And I do suppose that science has taken, to a large extent and for a number of people, has taken the place of religion.
Interviewer: What do you mean by that?
That one can have more belief in scientific cures or scientific miracles than you do in God miracles. It's inevitable that we will eventually diffuse into nothingness ... — Bill Blass

Although signs may be found in everything that comes to us, as though a river at our doorstep carried these messages on its surface, the Quran (like other sacred books) speaks in terms of empirical experience, since it is intended to endure through the ages and cannot bind itself to the 'scientific' theories of any particular time. Its images are the phenomena of nature as they appear to us in our experience - the rising and setting of the sun, the domed sky above and the mountains, which are like weights set upon the earth. Scientific observations change according to the preconceptions of the observer and the instruments at his disposal, and the speculations which blinkered human minds construct on the basis of these observations change no less swiftly. But man's experience of the visual universe does not change. The sun 'rises' for me today as it 'rose' for the man of ten thousand years ago. — Charles Le Gai Eaton

Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall all be alike-brothers of one father and one another, with one sky above us and one country around us, and one government for all. — Chief Joseph

You don't understand, you fool' says Yegor, looking dreamily up at the sky. 'You've never understood what kind of person I am, nor will you in a million years ... You just think I'm a mad person who has thrown his life away ... Once the free spirit has taken hold of a man, there's no way of getting it out of him. — Anton Chekhov

When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aquiline, the nose sharpened, the chin narrowed, and his eyes-steel blue - somehow took on the cold brilliance of a northern sky. I am being very frank about my husband. He attracted me at those times, and he repelled me too. This man, I told myself when I first met him, is a perfectionist. And he has no compassion. Gratified like all women who find themselves sought after and desired - a mutual love for Sibelius had been our common ground at our first encounter - after a few weeks in his company I shut my eyes to further judgment, because being with him gave me pleasure. It flattered my self-esteem. The perfectionist, admired by other women, now sought me. Marriage was in every sense a coup. It was only afterwards that I knew myself deceived. ("The Chamois") — Daphne Du Maurier

platform. Outside an old man in overalls was working his way along the wagons, undoing padlocks, throwing bolts, hauling the massive panel doors back along their tracks. Apart from him, no one. Could it be this simple? He didn't pause to ask himself the question a second time. Just sprang down from the opening onto the concrete siding and began walking, head lowered and limping at first, until the oxygen started flowing through his bloodstream and the muscles of his legs began to work then, as they did, quickening his pace and striding faster, lifting his head to the seamless pale blue dawn sky and tasting the breath of freedom. He found a covered overpass that seemed to connect the freight platforms with the main terminal. Took the stairs two at a time and started across the bridge towards the massive building at the other side. The station hall was a curiously romantic — Greg Wilson

Travelers are always discoverers, especially those who travel by air. There are no signposts in the sky to show a man has passed that way before. There are no channels marked. The flier breaks each second into new uncharted seas. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The mountains loomed over the valley like a psychical presence, a source and mirror of nervous influences, emotions, subtle and unlabeled aspirations; no man could ignore that presence; in an underground poker game, in the vaults of the First National Bank, in the secret chambers of The Factory, in the backroom of the realtor's office during the composition of an intricate swindle, in the heart of a sexual embrace, the emanations of mountain and sky imprinted some analogue of their nature on the evolution and shape of every soul. — Edward Abbey

It hit me like divine inspiration. Religion is the greatest graft ever invented because no one ever loses money claiming to speak for the invisible man in the sky. People already believe in him. They already accept that they owe him money, and they think they'll burn in hell if they don't pay him. If you can't make money in the religion business, you need to give up. — Jake Hinkson

The fixed stars signify the angel in man. That is why man orients himself by them; and that is why women have no appreciation for the starry sky; because they have no sense of the angel in man. — Otto Weininger

Great master Lao Tzu says that 'The Master has no possessions. The more he does for others, the happier he is. The more he gives to others, the wealthier he is.' Giving is indeed a very good source of happiness! One of the best treasures a man can give to someone is a good and sound idea; because birds can ascend into the sky only with wings, and men, only with good and sound ideas! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

A circle drawn on a blackboard, a right triangle, a rhombus
all these are forms we can fully intuit; Ireneo could do the same with the stormy mane of a young colt, a small herd of cattle on a mountainside, a flickering fire and its uncountable ashes, and the many faces of a dead man at a wake. I have no idea how many stars he saw in the sky. — Jorge Luis Borges

New Season
No coats today. Buds bulge on chestnut trees,
And on the doorstep of a big, old house
A young man stands and plays his flute.
I watch the silver notes fly up
And circle in the blue sky above the traffic,
Travelling where they will.
And suddenly this paving-stone
Midway between my front door and the bus stop
Is a starting point.
From here I can go anywhere I choose. — Wendy Cope

The wiry man scratched his head, looked the two inquisitors up and down and cleared his throat softly. "We must be quick." He turned to go, pulling his cloak over his head and shuffling through the door into the moonlight. The two inquisitors moved with impossible silence behind, floating across the straw-covered floor like the cats on the walls outside the hut. The cats froze at the disturbance before scurrying noiselessly into the shadows as the three silhouettes crossed the ten yards of grass before the blackness of the forest swallowed them. No fires flickered at this time, when the full moon was highest in the cloudless summer sky, and the three were the only waking souls in the hamlet. — Gregory Figg

It would be wholly impossible for me to say whether this cloudy, silently disturbed, unraveled sky is mirrored in my soul or the reverse, whether or not I read the image of my own inner life in this sky. Sometimes everything is so completely uncertain! There are days when I am convinced that no man on earth can recognize certain moods of air and cloud, certain tones of color, certain fragrances and movements of moisture as finely, as exactly, and as truly as I can, with my old, nervous sense of poet and wanderer. And then again, as today, it can be doubtful to me whether I have seen, heard, and smelled anything after all, whether everything that I took to be true is not merely an image cast outward, the image of my inner life. — Hermann Hesse

While the others
those who wanted him to stay, to hold the line, to become the brink, but no farther
felt viable now with disgust for the shouters: they wanted the man to save himself, step backward into the arms of the cops instead of the sky. — Colum McCann

Huts they made then, and fire, and skins for clothing, And a woman yielded to one man in wedlock ... Common, to see the offspring they had made; The human race began to mellow then. Because of fire their shivering forms no longer Could bear the cold beneath the covering sky. — Lucretius

only had eyes for Hayden, who was wearing her blond hair pinned up in elaborate braids. In her light blue summer dress, she looked as fresh and alluring as apple pie. Even as a boy, he could have stared at her for hours when she did her hair in such a beautifully girlish fashion. And as a young man, after he'd discovered the joy of exploring the soft skin of his girlfriend, he could never look away from her pretty face when she offered him a smile. Even now, he couldn't think of anything he'd rather do than scrutinize her soft curves under that dress, to trace her delicate features with his gaze and stare into her sky-blue eyes. But that was no longer possible. He — Poppy J. Anderson

Don Enrique says a full moon pulls up the highest tides of the month, at midday and midnight. And it pulls them down to their lowest ebb when it is rising or setting. So says a man in a frock coat and breeches who, if he tried to row a boat, would fall out instantly and drown. But Leandro said the same thing about the moon and high tide, so it might be true. How can you know if the moon is going toward full, or disappearing? This evening the moon was half, and Leandro said it's dying away. You can tell because it's shaped like the letter C, not curved forward like D. He says when the moon is D like Dios, it is growing to fill God's sky. When dying away it is C, like Cristo on the cross. So, no good tides again for many days. — Barbara Kingsolver

No man will speak to his master; but to a wanderer and a friend, to him who does not come to teach or to rule, to him who asks for nothing and accepts all things, words are spoken by the camp-fires, in the shared solitude of the sea, in riverside villages, in resting-places surrounded by forests - words are spoken that take no account of race or colour. One heart speaks - another one listens; and the earth, the sea, the sky, the passing wind and the stirring leaf, hear also the futile tale of the burden of life. — Joseph Conrad

And though this encounter took place against an African sky, our brief enchantment symbolized the new world's greatest taboo - the hand of a very black man caressing the face of the blackest woman, with no shred of light entering into it, utter darkness alone representing God (71). — Kola Boof

Simm watched the hanging with disgust. Why would the young man pretend to be a spy when he had no skills and no natural ability? As far as he could tell there had been no secret inks, no codes, and little effort to keep his movements secret. Maybe the world was better off without such fools; fledglings who fell out of the sky only to die on the ground. — Dory Codington

Kizzy was so busy wishing she was Sarah Ferris or Jenny Glass that she could scarcely see herself at all and she was certainly blind to her own weird beauty: her heavy spell-casting eyes too-wide mouth wild hair and hips that could be wild too if they learned how. No one else in town looked anything like her and if she lived to womanhood she was the one artists would want to draw not the Sarahs and Jennys. She was the one who would some day know a dozen ways to wear a silk scarf how to read the sky for rain and coax feral animals near how to purr throaty love songs in Portuguese and Basque how to lay a vampire to rest how to light a cigar how to light a man's imagination on fire. — Laini Taylor

All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. — W. H. Auden

The Fool, the Zero card, dressed in motley, dazzled face to the sky, foot about to come off the cliff. Pierrot. It wasn't Michael at all. It was her. You fool ... And which one was he? The Magician? She'd thought he was. She'd thought he had it all lined up. The world spinning on his little finger. Or else the Hermit with his lantern, looking for the true world. But no, here he was. The twelfth card. The Hanged Man. Lashed upside down to his cross tree. Unable to go backward or forward — Janet Fitch

Here's the truth. We want to read too much into life because it's convenient. Or fun. But there's no imaginary, invisible man in the sky who makes things happen. — Jessica Park

Nothing is clear now. Something must be the matter with my way of viewing things. I have no middle view. Either I fix on a detail and see it as thought it were magnified
a leaf with all its veins perceived, the fine hairs on a man's hands
or else the world recedes and becomes blurred, artificial, indefinite, an abstract painting of a world. The darkening sky is hugely blue, gashed with rose, blood, flame from the volcano or wound or flower of the lowering sun. The wavering green, the sea of grass, piercingly bright. Black tree trunks, contorted, arching over the river. — Margaret Laurence