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1 " One cannot launch a new history — the idea is altogether unthinkable; there would not be the continuity and tradition. Tradition cannot be contrived or learned. In its absence one has, at the best, not history but ‘progress’ — the mechanical movement of a clock hand, not the sacred succession of interlinked events. "
― Osip Mandelstam
2 " Only what is seen, appreciated, and loved will be missed in its absence which makes humans creatures of habit "
3 " However much you have been wanting and hoping and dreaming of meeting the person of your dreams, it is only when you meet them that you will start missing them. It seems that the presence of an object is required to make its absence felt (or to make the absence of something felt). A kind of longing may have preceded their arrival, but you have to meet in order to feel the full force of your frustration in their absence. "
― Adam Phillips , Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life
4 " The Limoges set has brought us more joy in its absence than it ever did in our cupboards. Of course, we no longer own a set of china to pass down to our kids, but that's okay. Francois and I plan on giving our children something more valuable, the simple truth that the best way to go through life is to be a major donor of kindness. We'll tell them that it's possible to own a whole bunch of beautiful, valuable things and still be miserable. But sometimes just having a recipe for chocolate Bunt cake can make a person far, far happier. "
― Firoozeh Dumas , Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
5 " The presence of confidence can make an unable man appear able. While its absence can make an able man appear unable. "
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
6 " We want our children to know and believe the one good story. Every other story is a copy or shadow of this one. Some copies of it are quite good and shout the Truth. Others see only the faintest whisper of it, or, in its absence remind us of the Truth. We want our kids to know the one good story so well that when they see Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo, Anne of Green Gables, Arielle, or Sleeping Beauty, they can recognize the strands of Truth and deception in them. Saturating our children in the one good story will enable them to discern Truth and error as it comes to them from the world. "
― Elyse M. Fitzpatrick , Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus
7 " but true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no " almost" , " in between" , " most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why " perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience. "
8 " And history teaches this iron law of revolutions: the more extensive the eradication of existing authority, the more its successors must rely on naked power to establish themselves. For,in the end,legitimacy involves an acceptance of authority without compulsion; its absence turns every contest into a test of strength. "
― Henry Kissinger
9 " All love stories are frustration stories. As are all stories about parents and children, which are also love stories, in Freud's view, the formative love stories. To fall in love is to be reminded of a frustration that you didn't know you had (of one's formative frustrations, and of one's attempted self-cures for them); you wanted someone, you felt deprived of something, and then it seems to be there. And what is renewed in that experience is an intensity of frustration, and an intensity of satisfaction. It is as if, oddly, you were waiting for someone but you didn't know who they were until they arrived. Whether or not you were aware that there was something missing in your life, you will be when you meet the person you want. What psychoanalysis will add to this love story is that the person you fall in love with really is the man or woman of your dreams; that you have dreamed them up before you met them; not out of nothing - nothing comes of nothing - but out of prior experience, both real and wished for. You recognize them with such certainty because you already, in a certain sense, know them, and because you have quite literally been expecting them, you feel as though you have known them for ever, and yet, at the same time, they are quite foreign to you. They are familiar foreign bodies. But one things is very noticeable in this basic story; that however much you have been wanting and hoping and dreaming of meeting the person of your dreams, it is only when you meet them that you will start missing them. It seems the presence of an object is required to make its absence felt. "
― Adam Phillips
10 " Until that day at the dress department Lucie had been many things to me: a child, a source of comfort, a balm, an escape from myself; she was literally everything for me – but a woman. Our love in the physical sense of the word had proceeded no further than the kissing stage. And even the way she kissed was childish (I'd fallen in love with those kisses, long but chaste, with dry closed lips counting each other's fine striations as they touched in emotion).In short, until then I had felt tenderness for Lucie, but no sensual desire; I'd grown so accustomed to its absence that I wasn't even conscious of it; my relationship with Lucie seemed so beautiful that I could never have dreamed anything was missing. Everything fit so harmoniously together: Lucie, her monastically gray clothes, and my monastically chaste relation with her. "
― Milan Kundera , The Joke
11 " Not longer loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man. "
12 " Straight couples don't have to be monogamous to be married or married to be monogamous. Monogamy no more defines marriage than the presence of children does. Monogamy isn't compulsory and its absence doesn't invalidate a marriage. "
13 " While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap. "