74 Separation Quotes

As ships becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail, at dawn of day Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.

We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.

Christianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor state privileges, nor state prestige. The more it obtains state support the greater it curtails human freedom.

In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

'Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?' I could risk no sort of answer by this time; my heart was full. 'Because,' he said, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.'

Man may be defined as the animal that can say 'I,' that can be aware of himself as a separate entity.

When we two parted In silence and tears, Half brokenhearted, To sever for years.

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, To war and arms I fly.

Farewell, woman! I intend Henceforth every night to sit With my lewd, well-natured friend, Drinking to engender wit.

While I concur with the Synod in the efficacy of prayer, and in the hope that our country may be preserved from the attacks of pestilence 'and that the judgments now abroad in the earth may be sanctified to the nations,' I am constrained to decline the designation of any period or mode as proper for the public manifestation of this reliance. I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.

Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully as absemce, and no absence so thoroughly as that which must needs be endless.

Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence. When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.

For now that they could not be together, they must indefinitely be apart, and what had been sure and unshakable was now fragile and insubstantial; for the moment we are not together, [he] is a stranger, for he has a life now that will be no part of mine, and that means that when I see him we will not know each other.

Absence from whom we love is worse than death, And frustrate hope severer than despair.

At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart: And as the last slow sudden drops are shed From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled, So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.

Separation isn't time or distance it's the bridge between us finer than silk thread sharper than swords

Go, forget me! why should sorrow O'er that brow a shadow fling? Go, forget me, and to-morrow

The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today. Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who live in it. Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it.

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow.

This is for us a ground for satisfaction, since we desire that the fight in the religious camps should come to an end : all political action in the parties will be forbidden to priests for all time, happy because we know what is wanted by millions who long to see in the priest only the comforter of their souls and not the representative of their political convictions.

till we meet again, my heart awaits you.' 'till we meet again, you will trouble my dreams'

And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves Interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight To divide us forever.

Here's ivy! -take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

They grew in beauty side by side, They filled one home with glee: Their graves are severed far and wide By mount and stream and sea.

***jesli zechcesz odejsc ode mnie...

If I'm ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That's why I can't stay here with you any longer.

But two are walking apart forever And wave their hands for a mute farewell.

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away.

What gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worm is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?

The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable.

However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.

You made me come to Paris. You pestered me to start living again. Well, now it's up to you to make my life livable. You mustn't let three whole days go by without coming to see me. ... You wanted me to take notice of you. Now nothing else matters to me. I know you're alive and I feel emptiness inside me when you're away.

Absence, hear thou my protestation Against thy strength, Distance, and length; Do what thou canst for alteration