Absence is the fact of not being where you are usually expected to be. Profoundly inspirational absence quotes will encourage you to think a little deeper than you usually would and broaden your perspective.
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Famous Absence Quotes
Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made. — Jose Ortega y Gasset
Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity. — William Hazlitt
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. — Karl Marx
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates. — Jean de la Bruyere
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. — Samuel Johnson
All the great evils which men cause to each other because of certain intentions, desires, opinions, or religious principles, are likewise due to non-existence, because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom. — Maimonides
Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have. — David Bowie
Total absence of humor renders life impossible. — Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. — Alfred North Whitehead
In the South, there was absence of any leadership corresponding in breadth and courage to that of Abraham Lincoln. — W. E. B. Du Bois
Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches. — Miguel de Cervantes
The number of known human fossils only increases slowly. But the manner of regarding and assessing them is capable of progressing rapidly, as indeed it does. In the absence of any absolutely sensational discovery in prehistory, there is an up-to-date and scientific manner of understanding man, which is solidly based on palaeontology. — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralysing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice. — Alvin Toffler
Absence and death are the same – only that in death there is no suffering. — Theodore Roosevelt
I think I am a very kind person. I think I’m joyful, but I could be kinder and I could be more joyful. I do believe peace is a state of grace, and not the absence of violence. — Dave Matthews
The human father has to be confronted and recognized as human, as man who created a child and then, by his absence, left the child fatherless and then Godless. — Anais Nin
I boldly assert, in fact I think I know, that a lot of friendships and connections absolutely depend upon a sort of shared language, or slang. Not necessarily designed to exclude others, this can establish a certain comity and, even after a long absence, re-establish it in a second. — Christopher Hitchens
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. — Baruch Spinoza
While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap. — Ray Kroc
Our family always had animals, but they became more important to me as the years passed because they helped me deal with the absence of love. — Marlon Brando
In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress. — Leonard Cohen
A necessary consequent of religious belief is the attaching ideas of merit to that belief, and of demerit to its absence. — Frances Wright
Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict – alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence. — Dorothy Thompson
The bond between a parent and child is the primary bond, the foundation for the rest of the child’s life. The presence or absence of this bond determines much about the child’s resiliency and what kind of adult they will grow up to be. — Jane Fonda
In the absence of sound oversight, responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system. — Barack Obama
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires. — Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Life has become the ideology of its own absence. — Theodor W. Adorno
I dote on his very absence. — William Shakespeare
For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. — Baruch Spinoza
The surest test of discipline is its absence. — Clara Barton
The U.N. is worse than disaster. The U.N. creates conflicts. Look at the disgraceful U.N. Human Rights Council: It transmits norms which are harmful, anti-liberty and anti-Semitic, among other things. The world would be better off in its absence. — Charles Krauthammer
I see all this talk about jobs going overseas as a symptom of the absence of innovation. And the absence of innovation is a symptom of there being no major national priority to advance a frontier. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness. — Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair. — William Cowper
Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that’s a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That’s not simple. — Jonathan Ive
I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. — Brendan Behan
Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others. — Wayne Dyer
Success is about honour, feeling morally calibrated, absence of shame, not what some newspaper defines from an external metric. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. — Nelson Mandela
Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it. — Thomas Fuller
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. — Alfred Lord Tennyson
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. — Rollo May
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. — Thomas Paine
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. — Alan Greenspan
In the absence of evidence, superstition. It’s a Middle Ages thing. That’s my theory anyway. — Tucker Carlson
The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning – in other words, of absurdity – the more energetically meaning is sought. — Vaclav Havel
God is absence. God is the solitude of man. — Jean-Paul Sartre
To me, its seems necessary to rediscover – and the energy to do so exists – that even the political and economic spheres need moral responsibility, a responsibility that is born in man’s heart and, in the end, has to do with the presence or absence of God. — Pope Benedict XVI
My mother, who is nearly ninety now, still talks continually about my father. All my life, I’ve been aware of her grief about his absence and her strong pride in his conduct. — Derek Walcott
Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires. — Bertrand Russell
Science sent the Hubble telescope out into space, so it could capture light and the absence thereof, from the very beginning of time. And the telescope really did that. So now we know that there was once absolutely nothing, such a perfect nothing that there wasn’t even nothing or once. — Kurt Vonnegut
If you’re a scientist, and you have to have an answer, even in the absence of data, you’re not going to be a good scientist. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought. — Samuel Butler
Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer. — Ovid
In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence. — Isaac Newton
When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. — Brendan Behan
The absence of men in the household has caused people to not know how to respond to authority with respect. There’s a major problem with the patriarchs having been chased out of the house. — Alveda King
Where there is an absence of international political leadership, civil society should step in to fill the gap, providing the energy and vision needed to move the world in a new and better direction. — Daisaku Ikeda
The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity. — Edna St. Vincent Millay
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. — Mark Twain
With Charlie Brown, it was about loneliness and isolation. I always thought that the thing about Charlie Brown and those characters was the absence of the parents. Half the strip was about who wasn’t there. The parents were never in the picture. — Matt Groening
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain. — John Stuart Mill
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life. — Jean Paul
Many are observing Ferguson and witnessing the anger, demonstrations, looting and vandalism and calling for quiet. But quiet isn’t enough. The absence of noise isn’t the presence of justice – and we must demand justice in Ferguson and the other ‘Fergusons’ around America. — Jesse Jackson
Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness. — Zhuangzi
In the absence of love, we began slowly but surely to fall apart. — Marianne Williamson
Religion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It’s the absence of religion, and that’s a wonderful thing. — Penn Jillette
White… is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black… God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
Awareness is key. In the absence of information, none of us know what is happening and what could be jeopardizing our health, our water supply, and our planet. — Erin Brockovich
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. — Hans Urs von Balthasar
It is definitely true that the fundamental enabling technology for electric cars is lithium-ion as a cell chemistry technology. In the absence of that, I don’t think it’s possible to make an electric car that is competitive with a gasoline car. — Elon Musk
It was no accident that just minutes after Israel became a nation, the United States… became the first nation in the world to recognize what was prophesized throughout the Old Testament about Israel returning after its absence. — Louie Gohmert
One of the symptoms of an absence of innovation is the fact that you lose your jobs. Everyone else catches up with you. They can do what you do better than you or cheaper than you. And in a multinational corporate-free market enterprise, it is the company’s obligation to take the factory to a place where they can make it more cheaply. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. — Carl Sagan
Absence of proof is not proof of absence. — William Cowper
It is possible to rise to the lofty standard set by the Lord for priesthood holders in making decisions in quorums. It is possible when there is great faith and love and the absence of contention. — Henry B. Eyring
Gangs are born of a lethal absence of hope, and hope has an address: 130 W. Bruno St. in Los Angeles, CA 90012. — Greg Boyle
My parents’ relationship with Kolkata is so strong. Growing up, the absence of Kolkata was always present in our lives. — Jhumpa Lahiri
Spaniards were condemned for appeasing terrorism by voting for withdrawing troops from Iraq in the absence of U.N. authorization – that is, for taking a stand rather like that of 70 percent of Americans, who called for the U.N. to take the leading role in Iraq. — Noam Chomsky
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people. — Jawaharlal Nehru
In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless. — Aleister Crowley
Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character. — Baruch Spinoza
Absence – that common cure of love. — Lord Byron
You can see the absence of women in governing bodies from Congress to state legislators, on corporate boards, in tenured positions in academia, and as forepeople in factories. — Gloria Steinem
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously. — Henry Kissinger
Being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it. — Bear Grylls
You’ll find boredom where there is the absence of a good idea. — Earl Nightingale
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? — Saint Augustine
Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself. — Henry Adams
Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. — Ronald Reagan
You have to approach something with indifference, as if you had no aesthetic emotion. The choice of readymades is always based on visual indifference and, at the same time, on the total absence of good or bad taste. — Marcel Duchamp
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism. — Wole Soyinka
Love, in the eyes of the world, is either a carnal appetite or a vague fancy, which possession extinguishes or absence destroys. That is why it is commonly said, with a strange abuse of words, that passion does not endure. — Victor Hugo
I know that the absence of my father in my life had its cost. — Bernice King
So many people condemn me for risk taking, but I find it sort of hypocritical because everybody takes risks. Even the absence of activity could be viewed as a risk. If you sit on the sofa for your entire life, you’re running a higher risk of getting heart disease and cancer. — Alex Honnold
Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. — Ambrose Bierce
I just want to make a point that it’s not just great teachers that sometimes shape your life. Sometimes it’s the absence of great teachers that shapes your life and being ignored can be just as good for a person as being lauded. — Julia Roberts
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. — Bertrand Russell
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. — Orson Welles
The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw. — Havelock Ellis
Absence is one of the most useful ingredients of family life, and to dose it rightly is an art like any other. — Freya Stark
As a result of the absence and weakness of black men, blacks have allowed every ungodly thing to influence their communities. — Jesse Lee Peterson
Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. — William Cowper
Parents are the centre of a person’s solar system, even as an adult. My dad had a stronger gravitational pull than most, so his absence was bound to leave a deep and lasting void. — Justin Trudeau