Distance quotes

Distance

2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

2.1K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside distance — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

People 100.4K quotes Thinking 95.1K quotes Running 14.7K quotes Men 68.6K quotes Long 17.4K quotes Eye 13.8K quotes

Quote collection

Distance quotes (page 27 of 106)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Seneca the Younger Philosopher, Statesman
Distance

"...the geometrician teaches me how to work out the size of my estates rather than how to work out how much a man needs in order to have enough....You geometers can calculate the area of circles, can reduce any given shape to a square, can state the distances separating starts. Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is. You can define a straight line; what use is that to you if you've no idea what straightness means in life?"

Mean Teaching Distance
Read quote 3 likes
Stephen Hawking Theoretical Physicist
Distance

"In this way, Edwin Hubble worked out the distances to nine different galaxies. We now know that our galaxy is only one of some hundred thousand million that can be seen using modern telescopes, each galaxy itself containing some hundred thousand million stars."

Different Stars Distance
Read quote 3 likes
Steve Martin Comedian, Actor, Writer
Distance

"How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her?"

Missing Distance Gone
Read quote 3 likes
Steve Martin Comedian, Actor, Writer
Distance

"When you're touring and if you go to a party, there's automatically a celebrity-audience distance. It follows you around, especially when you're on the road in small towns. Any time there is awe, it gets very difficult to be normal, to be yourself. But I'm not saying that that's what made me the way I am. I've probably always been distant."

Party Distance Being Yourself
Read quote 3 likes
Susan Sontag Essayist, Critic, Activist
Distance

"A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past-are incitements to reverie. The sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs feeds directly into the erotic feelings of those for whom desirability is enhanced by distance."

Past Fire Distance
Read quote 3 likes
Swami Vivekananda Spiritual Leader, Philosopher
Distance

"Crossing over mountains, rivers, arid oceans, setting at naught, as it were, the obstacles of the distance of space and time, the blood of Indian thought has flowed, and is still flowing into the veins of other nations of the globe, whether in a distinct or in some subtle unknown way. Perhaps to us belongs the major portion of the universal ancient inheritance."

Blood Ocean Distance
Read quote 3 likes
Sue Miller Author
Distance

"But perhaps this is all to the good. Perhaps it’s best to live with the possibility that around any corner, at any time, may come the person who reminds you of your own capacity to surprise yourself, to put at risk everything that’s dear to you. Who reminds you of the distances we have to bridge to begin to know anything about one another. Who reminds you that what seems to be—even about yourself—may not be. That like him, you need to be forgiven."

Risk Distance Bridges
Read quote 3 likes
Distance

"He did not understand all he had heard, but from his clandestine glimpse into the privacy of these two, with all the world that his short experience could conceive of at their feet, he had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad."

Simple Struggle Distance
Read quote 3 likes
Zadie Smith Novelist, Essayist
Distance

"... don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own... Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt."

Pain Distance Eyebrows
Read quote 3 likes
Mara Wilson Actress
Distance

"Whereas when I was a teenager, other teenagers didn't want anything to do with me. It was even like that in college to a degree. People of that age don't want anything to do with their childhood, because they had put away childish things, and they're trying to distance themselves."

College Distance Teenager
Read quote 3 likes
Kate Chopin Author
Distance

"Exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her. "Good-by--because I love you." He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen him--but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone. She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again."

Love You Distance Doctors
Read quote 3 likes