Seen But Not Heard Quotes & Sayings

I have heard and seen many examples of the cruelty that we are able to visit on one another during my time ... I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion. Yes, each of us has the capacity for great evil. But for every act of evil there are a dozen acts of goodness in our world that go unnoticed. It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not. Indeed, if people condoned the evil, we would be justified in losing hope. But most of the world does not. We know that we are meant for better. — Desmond Tutu

I am not a speaker nor a preacher. I have no mission to change the world. I have no original words or teaching to give anyone. I reflect only what I've seen and heard - most ordinary, very common. I have no fascination for fresh ideas and activity. All enthusiasm for worldly endeavours and strivings have all but gone. For me, thoughts, words and deeds- the activities of life, are merely the utensils for serving out the 'prasad' of the Being-ness. — Mooji

The poet Gary Snyder's finely unpoetic image of composting is useful here. Stuff goes into the writer, a whole lot of stuff, not notes in a notebook but everything seen and heard and felt all day every day, a lot of garbage, leftovers, dead leaves, eyes of potatoes, artichoke stems, forests, streets, rooms in slums, mountain ranges, voices, screams, dreams, whispers, smells, blows, eyes, gaits, gestures, the touch of a hand, a whistle in the night, the slant of light on the wall of a child's room, a fin in a waste of waters. All this stuff goes down into the novelist's personal compost bin, where it combines, recombines, changes; gets dark, mulchy, fertile, turns into ground. A seed falls into it, the ground nourishes the seed with the richness that went into it, and something grows. But what grows isn't an artichoke stem and a potato eye and a gesture. It's a new thing, a new whole. It's made up. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The fish is my friend too ... I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky; he thought — Ernest Hemingway,

Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.
The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like
what's going on
what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming another third of it spent in telling lies. [Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness] — Ursula K. Le Guin

The incomparable Michael Jackson has made a bigger impact on music than any other artist in the history of music. He was magic. He was what we all strive to be. He will always be the King of Pop! Life is not about how many breaths you take, but about how many moments in life that take your breath away. For anyone who has ever seen, felt or heard his art, we are all honored to have been alive in this generation to experience the magic of Michael Jackson. I love you, Michael. — Beyonce Knowles

if someone would wish to see a city or a country, he would certainly go to that place for the sight; in the same way, one wishing to comprehend the mind of the theologians must first wash and cleanse his soul by his manner of life, and approach the saints themselves by the imitation of their works, so that being with them in the conduct of a common life, he may understand also the things revealed to them, and thenceforth, as joined to them, may escape the peril of the sinners and their fire on the day of judgment, but may receive what has been laid up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven, "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man" (1 Cor 2.9), — Athanasius Of Alexandria

She paused when she got to Drizzt, studying his handsome features. "Who have we here?" she asked, not losing her calm monotone. "I had not heard of your arrival, but I am sure that many will desire an audience with you before you go! We have never seen one of your kind. — R.A. Salvatore

Amongst other things, when the Holy Gospel was being read, ye heard what the Lord Jesus said, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." (John xiv.6). Truth and life doth every man desire; but not every man doth find the way. That God is a certain Life Eternal, Unchangeable, Intelligible, Intelligent, Wise, Making wise, some philosophers even of this world have seen. — Augustine Of Hippo

Each of us has a sophisticated system that throws away most of our experiences, keeps only a few choice samples, mixes them up with bits from movies we've seen, novels we've read, speeches we've heard, and daydreams we've savoured, and out of all that jumble it weaves a seemingly coherent story about who I am, where I came from and where I am going. This story tells me what to love, whom to hate and what to do with myself. This story may even cause me to sacrifice my life, if that's what the plot requires. We all have our genre. Some people live a tragedy, others inhabit a never-ending religious drama, some approach life as if it were an action film, and not a few act as if in a comedy. But in the end, they are all just stories. What, — Yuval Noah Harari

He'd seen that absent look from her dozens of times in London. She thought herself invisible, and was not. Not to him. This was the second time he'd mentioned marriage to her. The second time she heard nothing but his words. — Carolyn Jewel

The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle,
And some have been known to fall in it.
In tennis it's nothing, but it can be received,
And sometimes a person may win it.
Though not seen or heard it may be perceived,
Like princes or bees it's in clover.
The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle,
And without it one cannot start over. — Trenton Lee Stewart

His stare shifted back over to Qhuinn. The guy's huge body was arching into the human woman, his broad shoulders and his tight hips and his long, powerful legs guaranteeing her one hell of a ride. He was amazing at sex.
Not that Blay would know firsthand. He'd seen it and he'd heard it ... and he'd imagined what it would be like. But when the opportunity had arisen, he'd been relegated to a small, special class: denied. Actually, it was more of a category than a class ... because he was the only one who Qhuinn would not have sex with. — J.R. Ward

She repeated what her mother had told me, that she had been moved when she heard me playing as she passed the house. She had seen me on the street a few times, too, and begun to worship me. She actually used that word: worship. It made me turn bright red. I mean, to be 'worshiped' by such a beautiful little doll of a girl! I don't think it was an absolute lie, though. I was in my thirties already, of course, and I could never be as beautiful and bright as she was, and I had no special talent, but I must have had something that drew her to me, something that was missing in her, I would guess. Which must have been what got her interested in my to begin with. I believe that now, looking back. And I'm not boasting. — Haruki Murakami

One of the most inefficient utopias I have ever seen was that of a humble Zapatista village in the mountains of Southeastern Mexico. I kid you not, the entire village sits down and takes days to make a single decision! Everyone gets a chance to hear and be heard, and some questions take eons of time, but everyone is patient and respectful. Things actually get done. It's as if time was suddenly transformed from the tickling of a Newtonian clock to something that revolved around ordinary folks. — Curious George Brigade

By being seldom seen, I could not stir,
But, like a comet, I was wondered at ...
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded
seen, but with such eyes,
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze. — William Shakespeare

Sansa sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. She had never seen a man die before. She ought to be crying too, she thought, but the tears would not come. Perhaps she had used up all her tears for Lady and Bran. It would be different if it had been Jory or Ser Rodrik or Father, she told herself. The young man in the blue cloak was nothing to her, some stranger from the Vale of Arryn whose name she had forgotten as soon as she heard it. And now the world would forget his name too, Sansa realized; there would be no songs sung for him. That was sad. — George R R Martin

Have you ever seen a witness? That's what she called herself. Not a ghost, those don't exist, and not an angel, those do, but a witness."
"No."
"Ever heard the term?"
"Outside of a legal trial, no. — Gena Showalter

The Book of Mormon is no fake. I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen and I have heard what I have heard. I have seen the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is written. An angel appeared to me and others and testified to the truthfulness of the record, and had I been willing to have perjured myself and sworn falsely to the testimony I now bear I could have been a rich man, but I could not have testified other than I have done and am now doing for these things are true. — Martin Harris

I understand and I know from experience that: 'The kingdom of God is within you.' Jesus has no need of books or teachers to instruct souls; He teaches without the noise of words. Never have I heard Him speak, but I feel that He is within me at each moment; He is guiding and inspiring me with what I must say and do. I find just when I need them certain lights that I had not seen until then, and it isn't most frequently during my hours of prayer that these are most abundant but rather in the midst of my daily occupations. — Therese De Lisieux

I do not believe in the court system, at least I do not think it is especially good at finding the truth. No lawyer does. We have all seen too many mistakes, too many bad results. A jury verdict is just a guess - a well-intentioned guess, generally, but you simply cannot tell fact from fiction by taking a vote. And yet, despite all that, I do believe in the power of the ritual. I believe in the religious symbolism, the black robes, the marble-columned courthouses like Greek temples. When we hold a trial, we are saying a mass. We are praying together to do what is right and to be protected from danger, and that is worth doing whether or not our prayers are actually heard. — William Landay

A swishing is often heard in the Carpathians, the sound as of a thousand mill wheels turning in the water. It is the dead men gnawing at the dead man, in the abyss without issue, which no man has ever seen, fearing to pass near it. It happens not seldom in the world that the earth shakes from one end to the other: learned people say it is because somewhere by the sea there is a mountain out of which flames burst and burning rivers flow. But the old men who live in Hungary and the land of Galicia know better and say that the earth shakes because there is a dead man grown great and huge in it who wants to rise. — Nikolai Gogol

Because I can read you like a book and because the thing about a beloved book, if it's a good one, is that it shifts like music; you think you know it, you've read it so many times, of course you know it, of course the pleasure of it is in how well you know it, but then you hear, in the background, the thing you never heard in it before, and with the turn of a page you see a combination of words you know you've never seen before, you thought you knew this book but it dazzles you with the different book it is, yet again, and not just that but the different person you have become, the different person you are now, reading it again, and you, my love, are an excellent book for me, and then us both together, which takes some talent with rhythm, but luckily we are quite talented at reading each other. — Ali Smith

Old people should be heard but not seen. Young people should be seen, not heard. — Grace Slick

People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. Great landscapes create themselves, long splendid views, rich and delicate colours, roads, houses, which he has never seen or heard of ... — Karen Blixen

My dog, Ginger, is jumpy-like me-sensitive to sound and sudden movement. She wasn't that way at first, but not long after we got her, my grandfather told me to stand still outside and hold her leash tight. Then he shot a gun off by our feet, several times. "This is how girls learn to obey," he said, "how to be seen and not heard." — Mira Bartok

Inside each man, though he did not know it, nor ever considered it, was the image of the woman he someday must love. Whether she was composed of all the music he had ever heard or all the trees he had ever seen or all the friends of his childhood, certainly no one could tell. Whether the eyes were his mother's, and the chin that of a girl cousin swimming in a summer lake twenty-five years ago, this was unknowable also. But most men carried this image, like a locket, like a pearl-cameo, in their head a lifetime, taking it out only rarely, taking it never, after marriage, afraid then to compare it to the reality. And most men never saw the woman they would love anywhere, in the dark theatre, in a book, or passing on the street. They saw her only after midnight when the city was asleep and the pillow was cool under their heads. And she was a composite of all dreams and all women and every moonlit night since the calendar began. — Ray Bradbury

She brought a finger to her mouth, licked it. Salt. A clean scent. Not male sweat rich with the scent of musk and masculine flesh, but something else. Something purer. Tears.
"Iain?"
He trembled and she could have sworn she heard his tears run down his cheeks and plop onto the pillow.
"My God, Beth. I've seen you. I've seen you in my heart and in my soul." And then he stiffened, pressed his fingers into her hips, squeezing. "Can I, Beth? Can I come inside you?"
"Yes," she murmured, holding him close, feeling his
body shudder beneath hers. "And stay forever. — Charlotte Featherstone

The joy of the shepherds was not that they were the ones who had heard the angels and seen such a great thing, but that a new light was given to the world, that God had visited his people again. — Anonymous

One of the most poisonous of all Satan's whispers is simply, "Things will never change." That lie kills expectation, trapping our heart forever in the present. To keep desire alive and flourishing, we must renew our vision for what lies ahead. Things will not always be like this. Jesus has promised to "make all things new." Eye has not seen, ear has not heard all that God has in store for his lovers, which does not mean "we have no clue so don't even try to imagine," but rather, you cannot outdream God. Desire is kept alive by imagination, the antidote to resignation. We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope. — John Eldredge

Clary: Now that I'm in your mind, want to see some mental pictures of Jace?
Simon: I heard that and NO ... You've seen him naked?
Clary: Well not entirely but-
Simon: Enough — Cassandra Clare

We, the one's who are challenged, need to be heard. To be seen not as a disability, but as a person who has, and will continue to bloom. To be seen not only as a handicap, but as a well intact human being. — Robert M. Hensel

Toulouse then felt a cool touch on his right hand as something wound around his wrist. It was the Lucefate snake, slowly coiling around him, winding tightly, but not enough to leave more than a slight impression afterwards. Toulouse flinched at first, yet forced himself to remain still and calm. It was Nature's first commandment to humans: remain still and calm until you understand, until you have seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt all that was needed before acting. — Mary-Jean Harris

He stopped at every village, every hamlet, every house and hovel he passed along the way to ask if they had seen or heard anything of his sister,, Gretel. But no one had.
"You mean Gretel, the old woman?"
"No, my sister."
"Gretel, my sister's baby?"
"No, my sister. And she's not a baby."
"I have a goat named Gretel."
"No! — Adam Gidwitz

My mother had heard all about miniskirts but had never seen one so I took her for lunch at Alvaro's [in Chelsea]. We walked down the King's Road and waited 10 seconds for our first miniskirt and a girl came along with her skirt tucked round her arse. I said: 'What do you think, ma?' And she said: 'If it's not for sale, you shouldn't put it in the window!' — Michael Caine

Incapable of conjuring up any facial expression that she did not learn from watching television, Jessica Alba plays a brilliant scientist who inadvertently acquires the ability to make herself invisible. This is not a gift Alba seems particularly comfortable with, as the last thing she needs is to be heard but not seen. — Joe Queenan

Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word with boldness. Even when threatened with punishment, he said that he could not help but share the things he had seen and heard. — David Jeremiah

Elegy (1586)

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares;
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain:
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen:
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death, and found it in my womb,
I looked for life, and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
The glass is full, and now the glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done. — Chidiock Tichborne

I think there are ghosts. I haven't seen or heard anything. I've definitely felt something, but it's not scary. — Robbie Williams

We are part of a holy community that for three thousand years and more has been formed inside and out by these words of God, words that have been heard, tasted, chewed, seen, walked. Reading Holy Scripture is totally physical. Our bodies are the means of providing our souls access to God in his revelation: eat this book. A friend reports to me that one of the early rabbis selected a different part of our bodies to make the same point; he insisted that the primary body part for taking in the Word of God is not the ears but the feet. You learn God, he said, not through your ears but through your feet: follow the Rabbi. — Eugene H. Peterson

I see," I said, which was not entirely true. But it did seem to explain a bit of what I'd recently seen and heard. "Er ... at this moment, are you kissing me?"
"No, only almost," murmured Gideon, with his lips just above my skin. "I mean, no way do I want to exploit the fact that you're drunk and may be mistaking me for some kind of god right now. But it doesn't come easy ... "
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his shoulder, and he held me closer.
"Like I said, you really don't make things easy for me. You always give me the wrong sort of ideas in churches ... — Kerstin Gier

It's alright," they say, "Of course, there's beauty there," but they hold back; you know they have seen or heard of the ugliness and the insularity there. They have experienced the farawayness of it. I have learned to keep silent, not to berate them for their disregard of the Brits' role in the colonial tragedy of my country. — Christos Tsiolkas

The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived. — Soren Kierkegaard

Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding," Joseph exclaimed. "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"
The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun. — Hermann Hesse

I have seen and heard comedians who had really funny 'stuff' but yet could not make the people laugh; then, again - I have seen others whose stuff was anything but humorous, and the audience would howl with laughter. — Al Jolson

That's my town,' Joaquin said. 'What a fine town, but how the buena gente, the good people of that town, have suffered in this war.' Then, his face grave, 'There they shot my father. My mother. My brother-in-law and now my sister.' 'What barbarians,' Robert Jordan said. How many times had he heard this? How many times had he watched people say it with difficulty? How many times had he seen their eyes fill and their throats harden with the difficulty of saying my father, or my brother, or my mother, or my sister? He could not remember how many times he heard them mention their dead in this way. Nearly always they spoke as this boy did now; suddenly and apropos of the mention of the town and always you said, 'What barbarians. — Ernest Hemingway,

I was in the car with Trace and heard his side of the conversation with you. Sounded clear enough to me."
"Apparently not, cuz I'm not sweet on her. What kind of dumb-ass thing is that to say? I like her, sure, even though she's not the easiest lady to be around."
"No?"
Jackson didn't seem to hear her. He continued on as he pulled food from the tiny fridge and piled it on the counter. "She has her reasons for being prickly, and I know it."
"Those reasons are?"
"And there isn't a man alive who wouldn't want her. She's about the sexiest thing I've ever seen." He shook his head. "But I'm not sweet> about anything." He scoffed. "That sounds like some adolescent bullshit or something."
"You have a very limited vocabulary."
"My balls still hurt. It's affecting my brain."
"Your brain is located a little low, isn't it?"
He paused, then laughed. Shaking a loaf of bread at her, he said, "Good one. I'll have to try to remember this sharp wit of yours. — Lori Foster

As much as I love acoustic Neil Young - and I do deeply - I may be more passionate about the electric. Luckily it's not a contest, and we never have to make that choice. But Neil Young on an electric guitar - I feel like I've never seen or heard anything like it. — Jonathan Demme

Jeremy shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know. I think you've met your match."
Jason scoffed at the very idea. "There's no such thing."
"Well, from what I've seen and heard so far, the lawyer is up by two."
Jason considered this. He may not have liked losing, but he loved the thrill of the game.
"We'll see how long that lasts ... " he mused out loud. — Julie James

Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not 'real'. No. But what was 'real'? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality. — Susan Hill

My eyes have seen much, but they are not weary. My ears have heard much, but they thirst for more. — Rabindranath Tagore

Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air. "Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab in reply. "No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all," said the other good-humoredly. "Come aboard!" "Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?" "Not enough to speak of - two islanders, that's all; - but come aboard, old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound." "How wondrous familiar is a fool!" muttered Ahab; then aloud, "Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayest; well, then, call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind! — Herman Melville

But filled with one of those unreasonable exultations which start generally from an unknown cause, and sweep whole countries and skies into their embrace, she walked without seeing. The night was encroaching upon the day. Her ears hummed with the tunes she had played the night before; she sang, and the singing made her walk faster and faster. She did not see distinctly where she was going, the trees and the landscape appearing only as masses of green and blue, with an occasional space of differently coloured sky. Faces of people she had seen last night came before her; she heard their voices; she stopped singing, and began saying things over again or saying things differently, or inventing things that might have been said. The constraint of being among strangers in a long silk dress made it unusually exciting to stride thus alone. — Virginia Woolf

Being daily swallowed by men's eyes, They surfeited with honey and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So, when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June. Heard, not regarded. — William Shakespeare

Your mind makes out the orange by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it and thinking about it but without this mind, you call it, the orange would not be seen or heard or smelled or tasted or even mentally noticed, it's actually, that orange, depending on your mind to exist! Don't you see that? By itself it's a no-thing, it's really mental, it's seen only of your mind. In other words it's empty and awake. — Jack Kerouac

Is that all?" asked the butler. His slightly melodic accent was nearly impossible to place. It could have been British, but it wasn't any British accent I had ever heard. The words Old English came to mind, too. As in old, old English. This, I'm certain, was a psychic hit, but I could have been wrong. Just how old Franklin was remained to be seen. "Thank you, Franklin. That will be all," said Kingsley, waving him off. The butler nodded. "If you and the lady need anything else, please do not hesitate to rouse me from a deep and satisfying sleep." "We won't, Franklin. Now, off you go! — J.R. Rain

What is infinity? I haven't a clue.
But maybe that's the whole point I've been attempting to explain to you.
The fact that it's not known
Or seen
Or heard.
Infinity is every person, every being, every bird.
Infinity is a simple mystery.
It looks like a mystery.
Tastes mysterious.
Feels like something completely delirious.
We cannot imagine what this sound could be.
All we can imagine is infinity. — F.K. Preston

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That is the very reason why this story was written.
( ... )
"But there are no such things as water-babies."
How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood - as folks sometimes fear he never will - that does not prove that there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the waters in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do. — Charles Kingsley

I guess I just sorta figured out early on that most of what people feared was based on things they had heard or read, rather than what they had seen or touched. That being said I do fear that dark in the sort of spooky illustrative sense, that whole idea of "not knowing" whats there. I had really bad problems with the spooks when I was young, but not for fear of aliens. — Andy Biersack

Nobody told me about him [my grandfather], and he died when I was six, and yet within the last year or two, that strange Indian summer of remembrance that comes to us in the leisured times when the children have been born and we have time to think, has made me know him perfectly well. It is rather an uncomfortable thought for the grown-up, and especially for the parent, but of a salutary and restraining nature, that though children may not understand what is said and done before them, and have no interest in it at the time, and though they may forget it at once and for years, yet these things that they have seen and heard and not noticed have after all impressed themselves for ever on their minds, and when they are men and women come crowing back with surprising and often painful distinctness, and away frisk all the cherished little illusions in flocks. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Dark the sea was: but I saw him,
One great head with goggle eyes,
Like a diabolic cherub
Flying in those fallen skies.

I have heard the hoarse deniers,
I have known the wordy wars;
I have seen a man, by shouting,
Seek to orphan all the stars.

I have seen a fool half-fashioned
Borrow from the heavens a tongue,
So to curse them more at leisure--
--And I trod him not as dung.

For I saw that finny goblin
Hidden in the abyss untrod;
And I knew there can be laughter
On the secret face of God.

Blow the trumpets, crown the sages,
Bring the age by reason fed!
(He that sitteth in the heavens,
'He shall laugh'--the prophet said. — G.K. Chesterton

Souls
When two souls fall in love, there is nothing else but the
yearning to be close to the other. The presence that is felt
through a hand held, a voice heard, or a smile seen.
Souls do not have calendars or clocks, nor do they understand
the notion of time or distance. They only know it feels right to
be with one another.
This is the reason why you miss someone so much when they
are not there - even if they are only in the very next room.
Your soul only feels their absence - it doesn't realize the
separation is temporary. — Lang Leav

All in all, I'd heard people do a lot of things with words. I'd heard them not say what they meant and I'd seen them not do what they said, but I'd never met a person who could speak so simply and still convey so much. — Rachel Joyce

I didn't know what the other guy was playing for, maybe just bragging rights. But this was my one chance to become someone who was looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard. — Khaled Hosseini

What was required was a new story, a new history told through the lens of our struggle. I had always known this, had heard the need for a new history in Malcolm, had seen the need addressed in my father's books. It was in the promise behind their grand titles - Children of the Sun, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Kushite Empire, The African Origins of Civilization. Here was not just our history but the history of the world, weaponized to our noble ends. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

But by all this I am not deterred, for I have seen, I have heard, I have felt. — Emanuel Swedenborg

The boy, who did everything well and with a natural unslumped grace the wraith himself had always lacked, and whom the wraith had been so terribly eager to see and hear and let him (the son) know he was seen and heard, the son had become a steadily more and more hidden boy, toward the wraith's life's end; and no one else in the wraith and the boy's nuclear family would see or acknowledge this, the fact that the graceful and marvelous boy was disappearing, right before their eyes. They looked but did not see his invisibility. — David Foster Wallace

I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still, can things be seen and heard. Everyone has a listening point somewhere. It does not have to be in the north or close to the wilderness, but someplace of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe. — Sigurd F. Olson

We heard her come halfway up the stairs, where she must have seen the bedroom light on.
Again, the normal parent reaction would have been to say something like, "You had better come out this moment or I am releasing the tiger!" But Debbie was not a normal parent, so we heard her gigle and creep away, saying, "Shhh! Rachel! Come with Mommy! Stuart is busy! — Maureen Johnson

It is the lot of God's ministers not only to suffer opposition at the hand of a wicked world, but also to see the patient indoctrination of many years quickly undone by such religious fanatics. This hurts more than the persecution of tyrants. We are treated shabbily on the outside by tyrants, on the inside by those whom we have restored to the liberty of the Gospel, and also by false brethren. But this is our comfort and our glory, that being called of God we have the promise of everlasting life. We look for that reward which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man. — Martin Luther

One of the earliest and most vivid memories of Robin's childhood was of the day that the family dog had been put down. She herself had been too young to understand what her father was saying; she took the continuing existence of Bruno, her oldest brother's beloved Labrador, for granted. Confused by her parents' solemnity, she had turned to Stephen for a clue as to how to react, and all security had crumbled, for she had seen, for the first time in her short life, happiness and comfort drain out of his small and merry face, and his lips whiten as his mouth fell open. She had heard oblivion howling in the silence that preceded his awful scream of anguish, and then she had cried, inconsolably, not for Bruno, but for the terrifying grief of her brother. — Robert Galbraith

Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning. — Frederick Douglass

He glanced over at me, a smile twisting his lips. "Hey, no advice, Ghost Girl. Guardians should be seen and not heard."
I flipped him off for the "Ghost Girl" comment but he didn't notice because Lissa was talking to him again. — Richelle Mead

The Principle which gives life dwells in us, and without us, is undying and beneficent, is not heard or seen or smelt, but it is perceived by the man who desires perception. — Mabel Collins

It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I'd had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that you knew or had seen or had heard someone say. — Ernest Hemingway,

A whole big, giant world full of men. Men with blue eyes. Brown eyes. Green eyes. And indescribable shades in between. Tall men. Short men. Skinny men. Built men. And all combinations thereof. Nice men (so I've heard, but never really seen). Mean men. Decent men, indecent. And who knows which is the best kind to have, to hold, to love? I'd say, with so many men in the world, it would pay to sample a few. Scratch that. More than a few. Lots and lots. And then a few more. And maybe, after years of research, you might find one worth not throwing back. But hey, the fun is in the fishing. — Ellen Hopkins

Two shadowy figures had appeared in the distance. A young girl led a donkey by its halter, chattering to a child perched on its swaying back. What in God's name were they doing out alone at night? They headed down the dirt road straight toward the house where Tehrazzi was apparently holed up. Every muscle in her body went rigid with denial. "Oh no ... " Had Dec heard the kids? Did he know they were in danger? Could he alert the children before the air strike? Not if he hadn't seen them. What should she do? She was too afraid to yell out in case someone started shooting, but no way could she sit back and let those children suffer. The breath shot in and out of her nose as she counted backward from ten, praying Dec would do something so she wouldn't have to. Ten, nine, eight ... The little boy laughed. Bryn squeezed her eyes — Kaylea Cross

The best things in life are not seen or heard ... but felt with the heart. — Helen Keller

Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or what
had befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home, but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the hands of his secret judges. A rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be of this terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that men went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of the wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Every mind has its particular standard of good and bad, and of right and wrong. This standard is made by what one has experienced through life, by what one has seen or heard; it also depends upon one's belief in a certain religion, one's birth in a certain nation and origin in a certain race. But what can really be called good or bad, right or wrong, is what comforts the mind and what causes it discomfort. It is not true, although it appears so, that it is discomfort that causes wrongdoing. In reality, it is wrongdoing which causes discomfort, and it is right-doing which gives comfort. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water, And the expensive ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. — W. H. Auden

The strings in her mind grew flatter, calmer. The shapes in the hologrid had changed. She heard the man's words, and yet she didn't; the words were not what was really important. And wasn't that right? Words had never been important, only strings, and the strings had shapes like - but not like -the ones around the man. Only the man had disappeared, too, and that was alright, because she, Miri, Miranda Serena Sharifi, was disappearing, was sliding down a steep long chute and each meter she traveled she became smaller and smaller until she had disappeared and was invisible, a weightless transparent ghost that neither twitched nor stammered, in the corner of a room she had never seen before. — Nancy Kress

JAMIE'S SONG 'Bright Blue Dream':

I watch the world go round and round.
And see the sun go up and down.
I think I've heard most every sound
Except your voice.

I feel the river by my feet.
And let the tears dry indiscrete.
Seems the horizon's incomplete
Without your face.

The world is a colder place,
Shadows everywhere you used to be.
Darker than the darkest nights I've seen.

And I try go back to that
Bright blue dream.
When there was nothing, there was nothing, but you and me.
Clear blue sky.
Yes there was something, there was something, I could not see. — Neha Yazmin

When those who have the power to name and to socially construct reality choose not to see you or hear you ... when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked in the mirror and saw nothing. It takes some strength of soul
and not just individual strength, but collective understanding
to resist this void, this non-being, into which you are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard. — Adrienne Rich

The Wild Hunt is known in all Celtic countries; it is a huntsman with a pack of hounds who is seen or heard to rush through the country. Those who see him are doomed to die. The writer heard the Wild Hunt quite distinctly one night in Wales several years ago, but has not suffered any ill effects from it as yet. — Robertson Davies

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive ... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying ... Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. — Ursula K. Le Guin

It was not the first time that they had seen trees, a blue sky, meadows; that they had heard the water flowing and the wind blowing in the leaves; but, no doubt, they had never admired all this, as if Nature had not existed before, or had only begun to be beautiful since the gratification of their desires. — Gustave Flaubert

In a matter of a moment the amount of sand in the upper part of the hour-glass had dwindled dramatically, the tiny grains were rushing through the opening, each grain more eager to leave then the last, time is just like people, sometimes it's all it can do to drag itself along, but at others, it runs like a deer and leaps like a young goat, which, when you think about it, is not saying much, since the cheetah is the fastest of all the animals, and yet it has never occurred to anyone to say of another person He runs and jumps like a cheetah, perhaps because that first comparison comes from the magical late middle ages, when gentlemen went deer-hunting and no one had ever seen a cheetah running or even heard of its existence. Languages are conservative, they always carry their archives with them and hate having to be updated. — Jose Saramago

But people had forgotten there was a day in the not too distant past when they'd not seen or heard of bombings, and suicide vests, and snipers. Alicia, though, had not forgotten. — Rona Simmons

If one is on the spot, disorders are seen as they spring up, and one can quickly remedy them; but if one is not at hand, they are heard of only when they are great, and then one can no longer remedy them. — W.K. Marriott

Then one day, from the window of a car (the destination of that journey is now forgotten), I saw a billboard by the side of the road. The sight could not have lasted very long; perhaps the car stopped for a moment, perhaps it slowed down long enough for me to see, large and looming shapes similar to those in my book, but shapes that I had never seen before. and yet, all of a sudden, I knew what they were; I heard them in my head, they metamorphosed from black lines and white spaces into a solid, sonourous, meangingful reality. I had done this all by myself. No one had performed the magic for me. I and the shapes were alone together, revealing ourselves in a silently respectful dialogue. Since I could turn bare lines into a living reality, I was all-poweful. i could read. — Alberto Manguel

But not quite, for actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are put down, those lies his keepers keep their power by. — Ralph Ellison

The plague spread and moved on. In the whole world only a few people were able to save themselves: the pure and the chosen, predestined to begin a new race of men and a new life, to renew and purify the earth; but these people were not seen anywhere by anybody, and nobody heard their voices or their words. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There had not been a lynching in America in a quarter century, and no one standing looking at the body had ever seen such a crime, but they had heard about it from family members and read about it in social science books in school. And they believed they knew what had occurred. White men had lynched a black man, and they had done it to send a message of intimidation and terror. This was something they thought would never happy again, and many of the black onlookers wept, others fell to the ground beating their fists against the earth. — Laurence Leamer

Turning off or tuning out people was my highly developed art. The custom of letting obedient children be seen but not heard was so agreeable to me that I went one step further: Obedient children should not see or hear if they chose not to do so. I laid a handful of attention on my face and tuned up the sounds in the church. — Maya Angelou

Nature does not conquer the world to God. It never has. It never will. In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of the echoes from the great white throne are heard. — Richard Salter Storrs

To Lou: I want to see the world through you; for then I shall not be seeing the world but only you, you you! I have never seen you without thinking that I should like to pray to you. I have never heard you without thinking that I should like to believe in you. I have never longed for you without thinking that I should like to suffer for you. I have never desired you without thinking that I should be allowed to kneel before you. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away ... Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him ... There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity. I do not understand these things, he thought. But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers. — Ernest Hemingway,

In order to be accepted, women must compensate for their ambition and strength by being nice. Men don't have to be nearly as much d as women. I do not believe women are natively nicer than men. They may learn that niceness brings rewards and hat names ambition is often punished. They may ingratiate themselves because such behavior is rewarded and a strategy of stealth may lead to better results than being forthright, but even when women are open and direct, they are not always seen or heard. — Siri Hustvedt

The whole world feels that it knows Francis, not so much because he follows Francis of Assisi but because he is always himself. We have seen him pay his own hotel bill and heard that Francis called Buenos Aires for a pair of ordinary black shoes, like John XXIII, who preferred stout peasant shoes to the traditional papal footwear. — Eugene Kennedy