Distance

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue. ~ Thomas Campbell

Distance usually refers to numerical measures of how far apart or close together objects are, based on a standard physical length, or estimations based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). In mathematics, a distance function or metric is a way of describing what it means for elements of some space to be "close to" or "far away from" each other, according to a specific set of rules. In a more general sense it can refer to differing ranges of similarity, diversity, complexity or conceptual dimensionality, beyond those distinguished by any simple linear or numerical measures.

Quotes

I've left the Past in God's keeping,—the Future
His mercy shall clear;
And what looks dark in the distance may brighten as I draw near. ~ Mary Gardiner Brainard

From a distance there is harmony
And it echoes through the land
And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves
It's the heart of every man…

Sweetest melodies.
Are those that are by distance made more sweet. ~ William Wordsworth

• DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• Australia's distance from Europe was probably only tolerable because it had strategic commodities which England, threatened by changing European alliances, might some day be unable to produce in the northern hemisphere. Flax was the first conqueror — a hollow conqueror — of the distance which so often shaped Australia's destiny.
  • Geoffrey Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia's History (1966)

• I see not a step before me as I tread on another year;
  But I've left the Past in God's keeping,—the Future
  His mercy shall clear;
  And what looks dark in the distance may brighten as I draw near.
  • Mary Gardiner Brainard, Not Knowing, published in The Congregationalist (March 1869), and set to music as a hymn by Philip Paul Bliss in the 1870s, as quoted in Glimpses of Christian History Presents More Stories: Blessed Bliss (2007) by Thomas Corts.

• 'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
  And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
  • Thomas Campbell, Pleasures of Hope, part i, line 7.

• In notes by distance made more sweet.
  • William Collins, The Passions, an Ode for Music (1747), line 60.

• As distant prospects please us, but when near
  We find but desert rocks and fleeting air.
  • Samuel Garth, The Dispensatory, canto iii, line 27.

• From a distance, there is harmony
  And it echoes through the land
  It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace
  It's the voice of every man.
  • Julie Gold, in From a Distance (1985).

• From a distance we are instruments
  Marching in a common band
  Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace
  They're the songs of every man.
  • Julie Gold, in "From a Distance" (1985).

• From a distance you look like my friend
  Even though we are at war
  From a distance I just cannot comprehend
  What all this war is for.
  • Julie Gold, in "From a Distance" (1985); Bette Middler's version alters the last line of this stanza to "What all this fighting is for."

• From a distance there is harmony
  And it echoes through the land
  And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves
  It's the heart of every man
  (Every man).

  It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves
  This is the song of every man.

  • Julie Gold, in "From a Distance" (1985).

• Remote fountains are of little help to nearby fires.
  • 遠水不救近火也。 from Han Fei Tzu Volume 22 (s:zh:韓非子#說林上第二十二)

• Love is like a landscape which doth stand
  Smooth at a distance, rough at hand.
  • Robert Hegge, On Love, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it.
  • James Howell, Familiar Letters, book i, section i, No. 6.

• Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.
  • Charles Lindbergh, as quoted in Lindbergh: Flight's Enigmatic Hero (2002) by Von Hardesty.

• By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes.
  • John Milton, The History of England, Book i.

• Already, the distance between what I was and am is insurmountable — like an ant contemplating the Cosmos.
  I knew it would be so … yet still I hoped.
  I guess there is really nothing left to say.
  • Jim Starlin, in lines written for Adam Warlock after he defeats Thanos by obtaining the Infinity Gauntlet, The Infinity Gauntlet (1991), Issue 6 : The Final Confrontation.

• Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world. Our hearing extends to a small distance. Our sight is impeded by intervening bodies and shadows. To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions. We must transmit our intelligence, travel, transport the materials and transfer the energies necessary for our existence. Following this thought we now realize, forcibly enough to dispense with argument, that of all other conquests of man, without exception, that which is most desirable, which would be most helpful in the establishment of universal peaceful relations is — the complete ANNIHILATION OF DISTANCE.
  • Nikola Tesla A Means of Furthering Peace (1905)

• When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.
  • Nikola Tesla "When Woman is Boss", Colliers, January 30, 1926

• Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
  But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.
  • John Webster, The White Devil (1612), Act IV, scene 4.

• Sweetest melodies.
  Are those that are by distance made more sweet.
  • William Wordsworth, Personal Talk, stanza 2.

• Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;
  Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,
  Frozen by distance.
  • William Wordsworth, Address to Kilchurn Castle.

• We're charm'd with distant views of happiness,
  But near approaches make the prospect less.
  • Thomas Yalden, Against Enjoyment, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).