Profundity Quotes

“A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.”
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.

The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.

The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.

Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.

Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.

The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.

Dare to breach the surface and sink.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“As regards intellectual work it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual, working in solitude.”
― Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

“Anyone who realises what Love is, the dedication of the heart, so profound, so absorbing, so mysterious, so imperative, and always just in the noblest natures so strong, cannot fail to see how difficult, how tragic even, must often be the fate of those whose deepest feelings are destined from the earliest days to be a riddle and a stumbling-block, unexplained to themselves, passed over in silence by others.”
― Edward Carpenter, The Intermediate Sex: A Study Of Some Transitional Types Of Men And Women

“A big silvery janitor. Penny, this can’t be how the universe works.”

“In the Order we call it ‘inverse profundity.’ We’ve observed it in any number of cases. The deeper you go into the cosmic mysteries, the less interesting everything gets.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“God knew man would evolve. People think some of the Old Testament laws are absurd now because we live in a very different culture, a different time period. They had their problems and we have ours. God is constant but man is not, and he foreknew the ever-changing world his people would have to deal with; therefore, and if there is indeed an omniscient God, a Christ-like figure would be our only rational, possible connection to a constant, holy God throughout the evolution of culture and social law. The only answer that makes sense when it comes to relevance regarding religions and time periods is Christ, and the chances are slim that men could have invented it.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale

“Being rich or famous is the only profound thing that some people have ever said.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“If you take some words at random and put them together, it becomes gibberish, and everyone who knows the meaning of words knows it as such. But if you take unrelated moving images and string them together, there will always be some people who will hold that the resultant strip of celluloid aims at some profundity.”
― Satyajit Ray, Satyajit Ray on Cinema

“Ask a true scientist a very profound question on his science, and he will be
silent. Ask a true religious person a very simple question on his religion, and he will be frenzied.”
― Kedar Joshi

“Quite possibly, the purpose of the universe is to provide a congenial home for self-conscious creatures who can ask profound questions and who can probe the nature of the universe itself.”
― Owen Gingerich

“Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.”
― Luc de Clapiers Marquis de Vauvenargues

“It is better to doubt that a concept is stupidly flying under your head than profoundly flying over your head.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“You still long for freedom, my friend, and that longing is your cage. You do not even realize what you are missing, or what it is that you are longing for, but something in you calls out to be aware. You have become parched in the desert of apathy, and thirst for the Bacchic springs forever out of your reach. And while your highest aspects thirst for freedom, so too your basest roots thrust outwards and strangle the hopes—”
― James Curcio, Join My Cult!

“To me, many of what seemed to be Bible contradictions only pointed to the grace of Christ. It is not so much a rule book on how to be holy as it is a prophecy of the One who can make you holy. In this, I see God as the least bigoted of all in existence: While men always, in their hearts, delight in vengeance for being wronged, God is the only Being who wants to free you from the penalty of His own laws.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Most of us move through life with little chance to learn much about ourselves. We know some things we like and some things we dislike, we have a few ideas about what makes us happy, and we die in ignorance regarding anything profound within ourselves.”
― Raymond E. Feist, The King's Buccaneer

“Every professor of philosophy needs a nine-year-old daughter. Mine has a habit of saying, "Daddy, that is a very silly idea." She is always right.”
― Grayling A. C.

“What she was retreating from was any profundity of feeling and therefore any commitment more intense than light church attendance and an interest in roses.... History is of course crammed with people like Mother, who are just sitting it out.”
― Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger

“Profundity and daring attempts at it are what separate our cultural touchstones from the white noise of daily communication.”
― Stewart Stafford

“We find, over time, the deepness of a thing. And if we fail to find it, then we invent it, to show ourselves we are not shallow.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“...musical interpreters should put themselves at the service of the composer, instead of perverting their music as an opportunity for image cultivation. I am not ready to give up my belief that human beings have an inborn longing for real profundity. I am firmly convinced that the deep emotion that music can evoke in us is not to be found on its surface. That which is truly great develops out of intimacy and humility towards the work of art.”
― Franz Welser-Möst, From Silence: Finding Calm in a Dissonant World

“Now he began to divine that a deeper meaning and a deeper wisdom underlay Our Lord's commandment "Thou shalt not kill" than merely that which he had been told–God desires not the death of any sinner. Behind the commandment lay also a care for the slayer–the slayer also exposed his soul to many kinds of evil powers, which now found occasion for sudden assaults.”
― Sigrid Undset, The Snake Pit

“Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur.

[Anything said in Latin sounds profound.]”
― Unknown