The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
James JoyceRead
Absence, the highest form of presence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Absence can sometimes create a deeper sense of connection or appreciation than physical presence.
James Joyce's quote suggests that sometimes being absent from someone's life can foster a more profound presence in their thoughts and feelings. Absence allows individuals to reflect on their relationships and may intensify emotional connections, revealing the significance of those we miss in our lives.
Themes
AbsencePresenceRelationshipConnectionAppreciation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a heartfelt message to a friend who is far away, reminding them of the strong bond shared despite the distance.
More from James Joyce
All quotes βI think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.
James JoyceRead
If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.
James JoyceRead
Gentle lady, do not sing Sad songs about the end of love; Lay aside sadness and sing How love that passes is enough. Sing about the long deep sleep Of lovers that are dead, and how In the grave all love shall sleep: Love is aweary now.
James JoyceRead
I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
James JoyceRead
The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.
James JoyceRead
Similar quotes
The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's mind. And no wonder, for genuine liberty demands of its votaries a quality he lacks completely, and that is courage. The man who loves it must be willing to fight for it; blood, said Jefferson, is its natural manure. Liberty means self-reliance, it means resolution, it means the capacity for doing without . . . the average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe.
H. L. MenckenRead
The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.
Sydney J. HarrisRead
We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences.
Mary Parker FollettRead
The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.
John GreenRead
A being who, as I grew older, lost imagination, emotion, a type of intelligence, a way of feeling things - all that which, while it made me sorry, did not horrify me. But what am I experiencing when I read myself as if I were someone else? On which bank am I standing if I see myself in the depths?
Fernando PessoaRead
The web of life is a beautiful and meaningless dance. The web of life is a process with a moving goal. The web of life is a perfectly finished work of art right where I am sitting now.
Robert Anton WilsonRead