Quotations: I Am Nobody, Nothing, Nowhere
Are you – Nobody – too?...
How dreary – to be – Somebody!...
~Emily Dickinson, 1861
I am no king, have laid no kingdoms waste,
Taken no princes captive, led no triumphs
Of weeping women through long walls of trumpets;
Say rather, I am no one, or an atom;
Say rather, two great gods, in a vault of starlight,
Play ponderingly at chess, and at the game's end
One of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floor
And runs to the darkest corner; and that piece
Forgotten there, left motionless, is I.…
Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power,
Am only one of millions, mostly silent;
One who came with eyes and hands and a heart,
Looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it.
Say that the fates of time and space obscured me,
Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me,
Wrapped me in ugliness; and like great spiders
Dispatched me at their leisure.… Well, what then?
Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust,
The horns of glory blowing above my burial?
~Conrad Aiken, "Tetélestai," 1919, quoted from the 1925 edition
Whate'er my inner stuff, my outside's blank;
I'm nobody — or rather, look the same —
I'm — who I am — and know it...
~Robert Browning
I'm nothing.
I'll always be nothing.
I can't want to be something.
But I have in me all the dreams of the world.
~Álvaro de Campos (Fernando Pessoa, 1888–1935), "The Tobacco Shop," 1928, translated by Richard Zenith, 1998
I am nothing, my name is Count Nothing... Did I exist before my birth? no; shall I exist after my death? no. What am I? a little dust aggregated by an organism. What have I to do on this earth? I have the choice between suffering and enjoyment. To what will suffering lead me? to nothingness, but I shall have suffered. To what will enjoyment lead me? to nothingness, but I shall have enjoyed. ~Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, translated by Lascelles Wraxall, 1879
When I was last in Concord, you spoke of retiring farther from our civilization. I asked you if you would feel no longings for the society of your friends. Your reply was in substance, "No, I am nothing." That reply was memorable to me. It indicated a depth of resources, a completeness of renunciation, a poise and repose in the universe, which to me is almost inconceivable; which in you seemed domesticated, and to which I look up with veneration. I would know of that soul which can say "I am nothing." I would be roused by its words to a truer and purer life... There is something sublime to me in this attitude, — far as I may be from it myself... Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, "I will simply be." Could I plant myself at once upon the truth, reducing my wants to their minimum… I should at once be brought nearer to nature, nearer to my fellow-men, — and life would be infinitely richer. But, alas! I shiver on the brink. ~Harrison Blake, letter to Henry David Thoreau, 1848
In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, — he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight: for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life — no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent
I must speak out my heart or I am nothing. ~Horace Field, Glitter and Gold, 1872
"I am proud because I am nothing," Casanova used to say. He could not boast of his birth; he never held high position... at every moment of his life he was forced to rely on his own real and personal qualities... He is a consummate master in the dignified narration of undignified experiences. ~Havelock Ellis, 1896
I am nothingness. ~Robert Browning, "Balaustion's Adventure," 1871, translation from Euripides' Alcestis
I'm the most unhappy woman on earth. I've lost my children... I was everything. In between something's happened. I don't know what it is. But now I'm nothing. Less than nothing. ~Inez Haynes Irwin, "When They Leave the Nest," 1923
Thou hast passed
Thy word that such I shall enjoy, and then
My mission is accomplished in this world.
I go unto another, where all souls
Begin again, or take up life from where
Death broke at it. I cannot think there will be
Like disproportion there between our powers
And will, as here; if not, I shall be happy.
I feel no bounds. I cannot think but thought
On thought springs up, illimitably, round,
As a great forest sows itself; but here
There is nor ground nor light enough to live.
Could I, I would be every where at once,
Like the sea, for I feel as if I could
Spread out my spirit o'er the endless world,
And act at all points:—I am bound to one.
I must be here and there and everywhere,
Or I am nowhere.
~Philip James Bailey, Festus, 1845 edition
Then Buddha dropped on his knees, saying: "O Life! O Light of Life! O Life of my soul, illumine me. I am nothing, shine within me, light a lamp in my soul that I may see myself and know Thy will... He who knows that this body is like froth, and has learned that all things are unsubstantial, he shall break the arrow of death... He who gives up all attachments of a world sort, clinging to nothing, having conquered his faculties, he is full of light and peace and is free from this world..." ~E. P. Powell, "The True Life," Liberty and Life, 1889
...and now I am here. No, I am nowhere. ~Rupert Hughes, The Gift-Wife, 1910
Knowing is such a big word... I know nothing, I've seen nothing, I am nothing! Nobody! ~Rupert Hughes, The Golden Ladder, 1923
Yet, when the time has come to be nothing, how good it is to be nothing!
a waste expanse of nothing, like wide foreshores where not a ripple is left
and the sea is lost
in the lapse of the lowest of tides...
I know I am nothing.
Life has gone away, below my low-water mark.
~D. H. Lawrence, Pansies, 1929
I will continue always in this track until I shall find something that is certain, or at least, if I can do nothing more, until I shall know with certainty that there is nothing certain...
Is there not a God, or some being, by whatever name I may designate him, who causes these thoughts to arise in my mind? But why suppose such a being, for it may be I myself am capable of producing them? Am I then, at least not something?... Am I so dependent on the body and the senses that without these I cannot exist? But I had the persuasion that there was absolutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky, no earth, neither minds nor bodies; was I not therefore, at the same time, persuaded that I did not exist? Far from it; I assuredly existed, since I was persuaded. But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something. ~"The Beginning of Modern Philosophy: Descartes," The Ideas That Have Influenced Civilization, Oliver J. Thatcher, editor, 1902
"I'm nobody!" should have a hearse;
But then, "I'm somebody!" is worse.
~Mary Mapes Dodge, "Life in Laconics," in A Satire Anthology, collected by Carolyn Wells, 1905