top of page
"On embarking to return we could perceive no sign of One Tree Island; and as we swept down towards the sea the leafy top of a tree seen in the clear water under the boat was the only evidence of its existence; though a few hours ago it had formed so prominent an object."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Existence quotes

"I never changed after that. I sought for nothing in the one great source of change which is humanity. And even in my love and absorption with the beauty of the world, I sought to learn nothing that could be given back to humanity. I drank of the beauty of the world as a vampire drinks. I was satisfied. I was filled to the brim. But I was dead. And I was changeless."

"The dead do not needaspirin orsorrow,I suppose.but they might needrain.not shoesbut a place towalk.not cigarettes,they tell us,but a place to burn.or we're told:space and a place to flymight be thesame.the dead don't need me.nor do theliving.but the dead might needeachother.in fact, the dead might needeverything weneedandwe need so muchif we only knewwhat itwas.it isprobablyeverythingand we will allprobably dietrying to getitor diebecause wedon't getit.I hopeyou will understandwhen I am deadI got as muchaspossible."

"But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all. Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too, just once. And never again. But to have been this once, completely, even if only once: to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing."

"Anywhere we go, we will have our self with us; we cannot escape ourselves."
Explore more quotes by George Grey

"All the principal people in the town are concerned in the slave trade, and their chief wealth consists in the number of slaves they possess; therefore there is little chance of the trade being, for many years, totally abolished."

"This part of Brazil offered the curious spectacle of a great evil, which has been long suffered to exist and is now advancing, gradually yet surely, to that state which must entail inevitable destruction on the existing Government of the country."

"Part of my plan was not only to introduce all useful animals that I possibly could into this part of Australia, but also the most valuable plants of every description."

"In front of us lay a smooth sandy beach, beyond which rose gradually a high wooded country, and behind us was the sea, studded with numerous islands of every variety of form."

"To sleep after sunrise was impossible on account of the number of flies which kept buzzing about the face."

"The Slave Trade, though nominally abolished, is actively pursued here, eighty-three slaves having been landed just before my arrival, and another cargo during my stay."

"Spanish alone was understood or spoken here; our friend, the countryman, stuck to us most nobly, he understood us not a bit better than the rest but saw that we were in distress and would not desert us."

"I mention this fact as tending to support what I have often heard stated, namely, that a shark's sense of smell is so keen that, if men ever bathe in seas where they are found, a shark is almost sure to appear directly afterwards."

"I remarked constantly, just at sunset, in these latitudes, that the eastern horizon was brilliantly illuminated with a kind of mock sunset. This in a short time disappeared, to be soon succeeded by another similar in character, but more faint."

"Sunrise offered a very beautiful spectacle; the water was quite unruffled, but the motion communicated by the tides was so great that, although there was not a breath of air stirring, the sea heaved slowly with a grand and majestic motion."
bottom of page