Quotes About Presence

There is something special about being in the presence of a person who is genuinely humble. Practicing humility shows that you respect others and reminds us that there is so much for us yet to learn. It sends a signal to those around you that you are open to receiving the gift of their knowledge and listening to what they have to say. The more you are as a person, the less you need to prove yourself to others.

people are making more mistakes in their work than ever before because they aren't present to what they're doing. Their precious concentration has been hijacked by a foolish use of technology and their priceless focus has been kidnapped, costing them their chance to create their best work and calibrate their finest lives.

Shvatio sam da su naši životi zapravo niz trenutaka – ako ih propustite, propustili ste živjeti.

the world all day long chatting endlessly on your phone about one thousand senseless things or

Stop spending so much time chasing life's big pleasures while you neglect the little ones. Slow things down. Enjoy the beauty and sacredness of all that is around you.

Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.

It was about being able to dance like Cassidy did, as though no one was watching, as though the moment was infinite enough without needing to document its existence.

She was in the book again and, by the time she got to page-turning time again, she'd forgetting I was there.

When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world, and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be.

Over six feet tall, with a flowing handlebar mustache, he dressed in well-tailored suits and black bow ties and was a man of presence and intelligence. Rarely did he debate in public; the cloakroom, the back corridor, was where his work was done. A reporter with the New York Tribune noted the "side whiskers close cut" and the "brilliant dark eyes which he fastens closely upon the person with whom he is conversing.

Tragedy reminds us that beauty is a redemptive presence in our lives: it is the face of love, shining in the midst of desolation.

It was my turn to be silent while a small family of moments crossed my path, single file, from the left, sticking their tongues out at me.

Amber casts an infinity of shadows, and my Avalon had cast many of its own, because of my presence there. I might be known on many earths that I had never trod, for shadows of myself had walked them, mimicking imperfectly my deeds and my thoughts.

I know no gods, but if any care to be with us, I welcome them.

The shadows will not bear me away, for there are no Shadows here.

I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time.

A cold winter night. I'm warm enough, yet I'm alone. And I realize that I'll 'have' to get used to existing quite 'naturally' within the solitude, functioning there, working there, accompanied by, 'fastened to' the presence of absence.

But isn't desire always the same, whether the object is present or absent? Isn't the object always absent?

Endlessly I sustain the discourse of the beloved's absence; actually a preposterous situation; the other is absent as referent, present as allocutory. The singular distortion generates a kind of insupportable present; I am wedged between two tenses, that of the reference and that of the allocution: you have gone (which I lament), you are here (since I am addressing you). Whereupon I know what the present, that difficult tense is: a pure portion of anxiety.

People say you have to travel to see the world. Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you're going to see just about all that you can handle. —PAUL AUSTER, SMOKE

With a ready tongue and rapier wit, Hamilton could wound people more than he realized, and he was so nimble in debate that even bright people sometimes felt embarrassingly tongue-tied in his presence.

Grant's postwar fame didn't spare him the bane of his father-in-law's glaring presence. After he and Julia settled into their Georgetown home, Colonel Dent had no qualms about moving in with them, forcing the victorious Union general to tolerate under his roof a cranky, unrepentant rebel who pontificated about the North violating southern rights.

The quieter he was, the more forceful his presence seemed

I know he has much enjoyed our being in the house