Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Isaiah 65:5.

We are as near to heaven by sea as by land!

-Gilbert, Sir Humphrey
  Dying words as his frigate Squirrel sank in the  Atlantic Ocean near the Azores, 5  Aug. Quoted in Richard Hakluyt Third and Last Volume of the Voyages†of the English Nation (1600).

He seems so near and yet so far.

-Tennyson
  In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 97, l.23.