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| Conspicuous by his absence. Tacitus. | 1 |
| | Absence makes the heart grow fonder; |
| Isle of Beauty, fare thee well! |
T. H. Bayley. | 2 |
| Judicious absence is a weapon. Charles Reade. | 3 |
| Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain. Moore. | 4 |
| I dote on his very absence. Shakespeare. | 5 |
| Absence is all love’s crime. Beaumont and Fletcher. | 6 |
| It is absence that tries fidelity. Mrs. J. Hunter. | 7 |
| The absent feel and fear every ill. Cervantes. | 8 |
| Achilles absent, was Achilles still. Homer. | 9 |
| I believe absence is a great element of charm. Beaconsfield. | 10 |
| Short absence quickens love; long absence kills it. Mirabeau. | 11 |
| | In the hope to meet |
| Shortly again, and make our absence sweet. |
Ben Jonson. | 12 |
| Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free. Dr. Johnson. | 13 |
| Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see, my heart, untravelled, fondly turns to thee. Goldsmith. | 14 |
| | There’s little pleasure in the house |
| When our gudeman’s awa. |
W. J. Mickle. | 15 |
| | Ever absent, ever near; |
| Still I see thee, still I hear; |
| Yet I cannot reach thee. dear! |
Francis Kazinczy. | 16 |
| ’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come. Byron. | 17 |
| | Wives in their husbands’ absences grow subtler, |
| And daughters sometimes run off with the butler. |
Byron. | 18 |
| | Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream, |
| And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream. |
George Linley. | 19 |
| | The joys of meeting pay the pangs of absence, |
| Else who could bear it? |
Rowe. | 20 |
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| As contraries are known by contraries, so is the delight of presence best known by the torments of absence. Alcibiades. | 21 |
| | All days are nights to see till I see thee, |
| And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. |
Shakespeare. | 22 |
| | Condemned whole years in absence to deplore, |
| And image charms he must behold no more. |
Pope. | 23 |
| Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it. Charles Lamb. | 24 |
| | ’Tis said that absence conquers love; |
| But oh! believe it not. |
| I’ve tried, alas! its power to prove, |
| But thou art not forgot. |
Frederick W. Thomas. | 25 |
| | Days of absence, sad and dreary; |
| Clothed in sorrow’s dark array,— |
| Days of absence, I am weary; |
| She I love is far away. |
Rousseau. | 26 |
| | I have this while with leaden thoughts been press’d; |
| But I shall, in a more continuate time, |
| Strike off this score of absence. |
Shakespeare. | 27 |
| | Oft in the tranquil hour of night |
| When stars illume the sky, |
| I gaze upon each orb of light, |
| And wish that thou wert by. |
George Linley. | 28 |
| | Ye flowers that droop forsaken by the spring; |
| Ye birds that left by summer cease to sing; |
| Yet trees that fade when autumn heats remove, |
| Say, is not absence death to those who love? |
Pope. | 29 |
| | Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see, |
| My heart untravelled, fondly turns to thee; |
| Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, |
| And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. |
Goldsmith. | 30 |
| | How like a winter hath my absence been |
| From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! |
| What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! |
| What old December’s bareness everywhere. |
Shakespeare. | 31 |
| Not to understand a treasure’s worth till time has stole away the slighted good, is cause of half the poverty we feel, and makes the world the wilderness it is. Cowper. | 32 |
| | O thou who dost inhabit in my breast, |
| Leave not the mansion so long tenantless; |
| Lest growing ruinous the building fall, |
| And leave no memory of what it was. |
Shakespeare. | 33 |
| | What shall I do with all the days and hours |
| That must be counted ere I see thy face? |
| How shall I charm the interval that lowers |
| Between this time and that sweet time of grace? |
Frances Anne Kemble. | 34 |
| | In my Lucia’s absence |
| Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden; |
| I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear, |
| And grief, and rage and love rise up at once, |
| And with variety of pain distract me. |
Addison. | 35 |
| | What I keep a week away? seven days and nights? |
| Eight score hours? and lovers’ absent hours, |
| More tedious than the dial eight score times? |
| O weary reckoning! |
Shakespeare. | 36 |
| Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle and blow in a fire. La Rochefoucauld. | 37 |
| | With what a deep devotedness of woe |
| I wept thy absence—o’er and o’er again |
| Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain, |
| And memory, like a drop that, night and day, |
| Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away! |
Moore. | 38 |
| | Since you have waned from us, |
| Fairest of women! |
| I am a darkened cage |
| Songs cannot hymn in. |
| My songs have followed you, |
| Like birds the summer; |
| Ah! bring them back to me, |
| Swiftly, dear comer! |
| Seraphim, |
| Her to hymn, |
| Might leave their portals; |
| And at my feet learn |
| The harping of mortals! |
Francis Thompson. | 39 |
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