The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy. -
Blaise Pascal
The Face we choose to miss, Be it for a Day As absent as a Hundred Years, When it has rode away. -
Emily Dickinson
Woman absent is woman dead. -
Walter Bagehot
O friends, be men; so act that none may feel Ashamed to meet the eyes of other men. Think each one of this children and his wife, His home, his parents, living yet and dead. For them, the absent ones, I supplicate, And bid you rally here, and scorn to fly. -
Homer [Homeros]
It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change. -
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse. -
Benjamin Franklin
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination. [La., Factis ignoscite nostris Si scelus ingenio scitis abesse meo] -
Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso]
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; For, thus friends absent speak. -
John Donne
The absent are always in the wrong. [Fr., Les absents ont toujours tort] -
Philippe Destouches
