The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things, bya law divine, In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Love and Philosophy'.

Who will dare deny that theThird Estate contains within itself all that is needed to constitute a nation?† What would theThird Estate be without theprivileged classes? It would be a whole in itself, and a prosperous one. Nothing can be done without it, and everything would be done far better without the others.

-Sie'  yes
  Qu'est-ce que le tiers-e¤  tat?

I enjoyed talking to her, but thought nothing of her writing. I considered her 'a beautiful little knitter'.

-Sitwell, Dame Edith Louisa
  OfVirginiaWoolf. Letter to Geoffrey Singleton,11 Jul.

When I do not understand, I like to say nothing.

-Sophocles
OedipusTyrannus, 569 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones,1994).

It is best to live anyhow, as one may; do not be afraid of marriage with your mother! Many have lain with their mothers in dreams too. It is he to whom such things are nothing who puts up with life best.

-Sophocles
Jocasta to Oedipus, her son and husband, before they both discover the truth of the prophecy. OedipusTyrannus, 979^83 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones,1994).

And all for love, and nothing for reward.

-Spenser, Edmund
  The Faerie Queen, bk.2, canto 8 stanza 2.

Nihil nos conari, velle, appetere, neque cupere, quia id bonum esse judicamus; sed contra, nos propterea aliquid bonum esse judicare, quia id conamur, volumus, appetimus, atque cupimus. We endeavour, wish, desire, or long for nothing because we deem it good; but on the other hand, we deem a thing good because we endeavour, wish for, desire, or long for it.

-Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza
  Ethics, bk.3, prop.9, note.

Anything scares me, anything scares anyone but really after all considering how dangerous everything is nothing is really very frightening.

-Stein, Gertrude
  Everybody's Autobiography, ch.2.

It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.

-Stein, Gertrude
  Everybody's Autobiography, ch.2.

Nil est dictu facilius. Nothing is easier to say.

-Terence full name PubliusTerentius Afer
  BC  Phormio, 300.

How to Live Well on Nothing aYear.

-Thackeray,William Makepeace
^8  Vanity Fair, ch.36, title of chapter.

For themost of us, if we donot talkof ourselves, orat any rate of the individual circles of which we are the centres, we can talk of nothing. I cannot hold with those who wish to put down the insignificant chatter of the world.

-Trollope, Anthony
Framley Parsonage, ch.10.

If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I am. There's nothing behind it!

-Warhol, Andy
  Quoted in Gretchen Berg 'Andy: MyTrue Story', in the LA Free Press,17 Mar.

The Labour Party is a moral crusade, or it is nothing.

-Wilson of Rievaulx, (James) Harold Wilson, Baron
  Scottish Labour Party conference, 5 Sep.

For all the dinners are cooked; the plates and cups washed; the children sent to school and gone out into the world.Nothing remains of it all. All has vanished. No biography or history has a word to say about it.

-Woolf, (Adeline) Virginia ne¤  e Stephen
  A Room of One's Own, ch.5.

After yourdeathpeoplewill write of yourloveaffairs, but I shall say nothing, because I will remember how proud you were.

-Yeats, Georgie ne¤  e Hyde-Lees
Quoted in Richard Ellman A Long the Riverrun: Selected Essays (1988), p.253.

There's nothing but our own red blood Can make a right RoseTree.

-Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)
  'The RoseTree', stanza 3. Collected in Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921).