Eclipses Quotes

The advantages of developing absorption concentration are not only that it provides a stable and receptive state of mind for the practice of insight meditation. The experience of absorption is one of intense pleasure and happiness, brought about by purely mental means, which thereby automatically eclipses any pleasure arising in dependence on material objects. Thus absorption functions as a powerful antidote to sensual desires by divesting them of their former attraction. ~ Analayo

She gasps at the sight that greets her.

The florists have gone to town. There are wild meadow flowers everywhere, in pinks and whites and blues, all lit by tiny fairy lights and soft pink lanterns.

Yes. This will do.

Ana is stunned. She whips around and gapes at me.

"You wanted hearts and flowers."

She stares at me in disbelief.

"You have my heart." And I wave at the room.

"And here are the flowers," she murmurs. "Christian, it's lovely." Her voice is hoarse and I know she's close to tears.

Plucking up my courage, I lead her farther into the room. In the center of the arbor, I sink onto one knee. Ana catches her breath, and her hands fly to her mouth. From my inside jacket pocket, I pull out the ring and hold it up for her.

"Anastasia Steele. I love you. I want to love, cherish, and protect you for the rest of my life. Be mine. Always. Share my life with me. Marry me."

She is the love of my life.

It will only ever be Ana.

Her tears start to fall in earnest but her smile eclipses the moon, the stars, the sun, and all the flowers in the boathouse. ~ E.L. James

I'd seen a great many partial eclipses, but a partial eclipse has the same relation to a total eclipse as flirting with a man does to marrying him. It's completely different. ~ Annie Dillard

External beauty is certainly cool to admire, but when worshipped - it eclipses internal shine. ~ T.F. Hodge

Our national fondness for celebrating the physical heroism of soldiers - the apparent readiness with which they sacrifice their lives to larger causes - eclipses the far less romantic displays of moral and intellectual fortitude that also distinguish so many of them. In turning them all into heroes, we have lost a sense of the individuality they also fight to preserve. ~ Elizabeth Samet

I stare at him through the dim light as instant lust eclipses anger, will, time, place. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Tarinthali Ringali, I am, without regrets, your devoted servant. Your wit and intelligence stun me. Your beauty eclipses the sun itself. Your warm personality is enticing, and I highly prize your ability to disembowel anyone stupid enough to wrong you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I selfishly want every part of you. It would be an honor, and my greatest desire, if you would allow me to protect, love, and serve you for the rest of our lives. And if you ever flirt with Eric or drink with another man again, I am going to slaughter them without hesitation. ~ K.M. Shea

The world eclipses and it's just her and him. No it's just her eyes and his soul. Her eyes expose and violate him, she turns him inside out. Then, her eyes drop him like a boring toy. ~ Stefan Emunds

In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

But Elise eclipses the woman from Jamey's future, the lady in tennis whites flashing her diamond as she drinks orange juice fresh-squeezed by a maid. A woman Jamey never quite believed in anyway. ~ Jardine Libaire

They say that eclipses are portents of disaster, because disasters are so common, and misfortune occurs often enough for these forecasts to be right, whereas if they said that eclipses were portents of good fortune they would often be wrong. ~ Blaise Pascal

Anger may bring extra energy, but it eclipses the best part of our brain: its rationality. The energy of anger is almost always unreliable. ~ Dalai Lama

I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things. ~ Ariel Pink

There has always been the same amount of light in the world. The new and missing stars, the comets and eclipses, do not affect thegeneral illumination, for only our glasses appreciate them. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The faults of the superior man are like the eclipses of the sun and moon. He has his faults, and all men see them; he changes, and all men look up to him. ~ Confucius

There are obvious psychological stresses on a person in a group, but there may be even greater stresses on a person in isolation. Most higher primates, including humans, are intensely social, and there are few examples of individuals surviving outside of a group. A modern soldier returning from combat goes from the kind of close-knit situation that humans evolved for into a society where most people work outside the home, children are educated by strangers, families are isolated from wider communities, personal gain almost completely eclipses collective good, and people sleep alone or with a partner. Even if he or she is in a family, that is not the same as belonging to a large, self-sufficient group that shares and experiences almost everything collectively. Whatever the technological advances of modern society - and they're nearly miraculous - the individual lifestyles that those technologies spawn may be deeply brutalizing to the human spirit. ~ Jonathan Franzen

They may lack confidence in their ability to leave a romantic relationship when and if necessary. Fear of abandonment eclipses all other matters, including their own happiness in a relationship. ~ Stan Tatkin

These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend
no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can
reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself
scourged by the sequent effects: love cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide: in
cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son
and father. This villain of mine comes under the
prediction; there's son against father: the king
falls from bias of nature; there's father against
child. We have seen the best of our time:
machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all
ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our
graves. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall
lose thee nothing; do it carefully. And the
noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his
offence, honesty! 'Tis strange. ~ William Shakespeare

The earth together with its surrounding waters must in fact have such a shape as its shadow reveals, for it eclipses the moon with the arc of a perfect circle. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus

My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilisation. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others. ~ Bertrand Russell

Peeling an Orange

Between you and a bowl of oranges I lie nude
Reading The World's Illusion through my tears.
You reach across me hungry for global fruit,
Your bare arm hard, furry and warm on my belly.
Your fingers pry the skin of a naval orange
Releasing tiny explosions of spicy oil.
You place peeled disks of gold in a bizarre pattern
On my white body. Rearranging, you bend and bite
The disks to release further their eager scent.
I say "Stop, you're tickling," my eyes still on the page.
Aromas of groves arise. Through green leaves
Glow the lofty snows. Through red lips
Your white teeth close on a translucent segment.
Your face over my face eclipses The World's Illusion.
Pulp and juice pass into my mouth from your mouth.
We laugh against each other's lips. I hold my book
Behind your head, still reading, still weeping a little.
You say "Read on, I'm just an illusion," rolling
Over upon me soothingly, gently unmoving,
Smiling greenly through long lashes. And soon
I say "Don't stop. Don't disillusion me."
Snows melt. The mountain silvers into many a stream.
The oranges are golden worlds in a dark dream. ~ Virginia Adair

You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies.
I've seen millions of them.
I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember ~ Markus Zusak

There is not one single challenge to Christianity that eclipses all others in importance. ~ James Davison Hunter

I have always read that the world, both land and water, was spherical, as the authority and researches of Ptolemy and all the others who have written on this subject demonstrate and prove, as do the eclipses of the moon and other experiments that are made from east to west, and the elevation of the North Star from north to south. ~ Christopher Columbus

Exposition: the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction--in short, belief--grows ever "truer." The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent.

The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to "landscape" the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.)

Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone.

Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--t ~ David Mitchell

Now that Dad was gone I was starting to see how mortality was bound up in things like that cold, arc-lit sky. How the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. The albums on my mother's shelves are full of family photographs. But also other things. A starling with a crooked beak. A day of hoarfrost and smoke. A cherry tree thick with blossom. Thunderclouds, lightning strikes, comets and eclipses: celestial events terrifying in their blind distances but reassuring you, too, that the world is for ever, though you are only a blink in its course. ~ Helen Macdonald

He blocks out the sun, and maybe it's the pain or maybe it's just him, but it feels like one of those rare total eclipses where you know you're not supposed to look because it can destroy your eyes or something, but it's so incredible that you can't help it. ~ Cora Carmack

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm of the opinion that as a DJ you must always play what you love and ignore what's 'trendy' because true passion always eclipses what's fashionable. Quality is always fashionable. ~ Boy George

The bullying of citizens by means of dreads and fights has been going on since paleolithic times. Greenpeace fund-raisers on the subject of global warming are not much different than the tribal Wizards on the subject of lunar eclipses. 'Oh no, Night Wolf is eating the Moon Virgin. Give me silver and I will make him spit her out. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Days and weeks go by and the regularity of existing eclipses the miraculousness of it. But there are certain moments when we manage to be viscerally aware of being alive. Sometimes those are terrifying moments, like narrowly avoiding a car accident. Sometimes they are beautiful, like holding your newborn in your arms. And then there are the quiet moments in between when all the joy and sorrow seem profound only to you. ~ Sasha Sagan

"I'm in love with you. I love you so much it eclipses everything else around me. You're the star I can never reach. I can wish and dream, stretch and strain, but you're always just out of my grasp. I need something I can hold, I can count on. I need something tangible. ~ Genna Rulon

Your call is clear, cold centuries across;
You bid me follow you, and take my cross,
And daily lose myself, myself deny,
And stern against myself shout 'Crucify'.

My stubborn nature rises to rebel
Against your call. Proud choruses of hell
Unite to magnify my restless hate
Of servitude, lest I capitulate.

The world, to see my cross, would pause and jeer.
I have no choice, but still to persevere
To save myself – and follow you from far,
More slow than Magi-for I have no star.

And yet you call me still. Your cross
Eclipses mine, transforms the bitter loss
I thought that I would suffer if I came
To you- into immeasurable gain.

I kneel before you, Jesus, crucified,
My cross is shouldered and my self denied;
I'll follow daily, closely, not refuse
For love of you and man myself to lose. ~ John R.W. Stott

I like the eclipses, the synaptic jumps of short stories. The reader has to participate very actively in the experience. ~ Deborah Eisenberg

No one's made me feel this way in years." His whisper is rough, calloused. "I want you, Libby."
...
"Then have me," I whisper.
His lips land on mine, and it's like coming to the surface after drowning. All desperate need that eclipses everything else. He presses me against the door and we're a tangle of heart-hammering desire and panting need. ~ Carrie Ryan

Isn't it the rarest thing? Never mind the whale migrations, or total eclipses of suns and moons: love that lasts, and is returned in equal measure, is the rarest thing she knows of. ~ Susan Fletcher

As the sun eclipses the stars by its brilliancy, so the man of knowledge will eclipse the fame of others in assemblies of the people if he proposes algebraic problems, and still more if he solves them. ~ Brahmagupta

You can read and read, but nothing eclipses experience. ~ J. Maarten Troost

In a large university, there are as many deans and executive heads as there are schools and departments. Their relations to one another are intricate and periodic; in fact, "galaxy" is too loose a term: it is a planetarium of deans with the President of the University as a central sun. One can see eclipses, inner systems, and oppositions. ~ Jacques Barzun

The extent of God's grace always eclipses the extent of my grotesqueness. Therefore, I can never be bad enough for God to tell me that He's had enough. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Rudeness is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

When does real love begin?
At first it was a fire, eclipses, short circuits, lightning and fireworks; the incense, hammocks, drugs, wines, perfumes; then spasm and honey, fever, fatigue, warmth, currents of liquid fire, feast and orgies; then dreams, visions, candlelight, flowers, pictures; then images out of the past, fairy tales, stories, then pages out of a book, a poem; then laughter, then chastity.
At what moment does the knife wound sink so deep that the flesh begins to weep with love?
At first power, power, then the wound, and love, and love and fears, and the loss of the self, and the gift, and slavery. At first I ruled, loved less; then more, then slavery. Slavery to his image, his odor, the craving, the hunger, the thirst, the obsession. ~ Anais Nin

We expect Armageddon; the Bible has trained us well. We assume either annihilation or salvation, perhaps both. Millennarian beliefs are as old as time; the apocalypse has always been at hand. People have lain quaking in their beds waiting for the year one thousand, have cowered at the passage of comets, have prayed their way through eclipses. Our particular anxieties would seem on the face of things more rational, but they have an inescapable ancestry. The notion that things go on for ever is recent, and evidently too recent to attract much of a following. The world being what it is, it has always been tempting to assume that something would be done about it, sooner or later. ~ Penelope Lively

I'm alone in a way that's more than the fact that I am the only living person within these walls. Up until now, I thought I knew what was and wasn't possible. Maybe that's what innocence is, having no way to predict the pain of the future. When something happens that eclipses the imaginable, it changes a person. It's like the difference between a raw egg and a scrambled egg. It's the same thing, but it's not the same at all. That's the best way I can put it. I look in the mirror and I know it's me, but I can't quite recognize myself. ~ Tayari Jones

Our kiss eclipses all others, real, imagine, dreamed of. It is the beginning of time, it is the end of the ages. ~ Ellen Hopkins

Eclipses tend to be strong and last for several seasons. Those were particularly ominous because there were two of them, both in unfortunate locations. The occultation will direct those energies on the conscious and subconscious level promoting power grabs as well as mass deception and illusions. When a celestial event only occurs every thousands years or so it usually means something significant, usually a new cycle, and in this case potentially violent. ~ Marcha A. Fox