Every painted image of something is also about the absence of the real thing. All painting is about the presence of absence.

-Berger,John Peter
  In New Statesman and Society,15  Jul.

And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me carry us not up hence.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Exodus 33:14^15.

Create in me a clean heart,O God; and renew a right spirit within me.Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.Restore unto methe joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Thenwill Iteachtransgressorsthy ways; and sinnersshall be converted unto thee.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Psalms 51:10^13.

O come let us sing unto the L: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. Psalms

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDPsalms 95:1^2.

   Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If Isay, Surely the darknessshall cover me; even thenight shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Psalms139:7^12.

O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands: serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.

-Book of Common Prayer
Psalm100:1.

If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.

-Du Bois,W(illiam) E(dward) B(urghardt)
  The Gift of Black Folk, ch.9.

The mother's yearning, thatcompletest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man.

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  Adam Bede, ch.43.

When I meet a historian who cannot think that there have been great men, great men moreover in politics, I feel myself in the presence of a bad historian; and there are times when I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of Winston Churchillöwhether they can see that, no matter how much better the details, often damaging, of man and career become known, he still remains, quite simply, a great man.

-Elton, Sir Geoffrey Rudolph
  Political History, ch.2.

The function of poetry is religious invocation of the Muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.

-Graves, Robert von Ranke
 The White Goddess, foreword.

She canoverpower, astonish, afflict, but she cannot win; her majestic presence and commanding features seem to disregard love, as a trifle to which they cannot descend.

-Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh
  Of Sarah Siddons. Critical Essays on the Performers of the London Theatres.

They share the insult of each other's presence.

-Isherwood, Christopher William Bradshaw
  On characters in his novels. Down There on a Visit.

Venice will linger in your mind†and wherever you go in life you will feel somewhere over your shoulder, a pink, castellated, shimmering presence, the domes and riggings and crooked pinnacles of the Serenissima. There's romance for you! There's the lust and dark wine of Venice! No wonder George Eliot's husband fell into the Grand Canal.

-Morris,Jan formerly James Morris
  Venice.

L'architecture est le miroir me"  me de la vie. Il n'est que de jeter les yeux sur des e¤  difices pour sentir la pre¤  sence du passe¤  , l'esprit d'un lieu; ils sont le reflet de la socie¤  te¤  . Architecture is the very mirror of life.You only have to cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past, the spirit of a place; they are the reflection of society.

-Pei, I(eoh) M(ing)
  Les Grands desseins du Louvre (with E J Biasini).

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedecked halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.

-Poe, EdgarAllan
  'The Masque of the Red Death', in the Gentleman's Magazine, May.

You have heard the sound of the white soldier's axe on the Little Piney. His presence here is†an insult to the spirits of our ancestors. Are we to give up their sacred graves to be ploughed for corn? Dakotas, I am for war.

-Red Cloud original name Mahpiua Luta
  Speech before war council at Fort Laramie,Wyoming.

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Ode to theWestWind', l.1^3.

Where God's presence is no longer a tenable proposition and where his absence is no longer a felt, indeed overwhelming weight, certain dimensions of thought and creativity are no longer attainable.

-Steiner, George
  Real Presences.