quote · Legacy record
I told myself: 'I am surrounded by unknown things.' I imagined man without ears, suspecting the existence of sound as we suspect so many hidden mysteries, man noting acoustic phenomena whose nature and provenance he cannot determine. And I grew afraid of everything around me – afraid of the air, afraid of the night. From the moment we can know almost nothing, and from the moment that everything is limitless, what remains? Does emptiness actually not exist? What does exist in this apparent emptiness?
I told myself: 'I am surrounded by unknown things.' I imagined man without ears, suspecting the existence of sound as we suspect so many hidden mysteries, man noting acoustic phenomena whose nature and provenance he cannot determine. And I grew afraid of everything around me – afraid of the air, afraid of the night. From the moment we can know almost nothing, and from the moment that everything is limitless, what remains? Does emptiness actually not exist? What does exist in this apparent emptiness?
Approximate author period: c. 1871 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Guy de Maupassant
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1871 AD · industrial
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1850 to 1893; Wikidata Q9327, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9327 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 66982; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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