A great deal of nothingness is certainly coming to us. There is an enormous amount of nothingness in our future. Christopher Hitchens, lecture 6th October 2009
NASA’s nothing has properties. The Final Frontier: A Horizon Guide to the Universe, BBC 2012
Nothing is taking over the universe. It’s creating more and more empty space. Filled with even more nothingness. Horizon: Is Everything We Know About the Universe Wrong? BBC 2009
What is nothing? It is an extraordinarily difficult question to answer. Jim Al-Khalili, Everything & Nothing, BBC 2011
Emptiness makes up almost the entire universe. ibid.
It’s about Reality at the very furthest reaches of human perception. ibid.
To Aristotle the concept of nothingness was deeply disturbing. It seemed to present all sorts of problems and paradoxes. He came to believe Nature would for ever fight against the creation of true nothingness. As he put it, Nature abhors a vacuum. ibid.
A vacuum is Nature’s default state. ibid.
So it seems nothingness is a seething mass of virtual particles. ibid.
Nothing really has shaped everything. And what’s more, we now have a way to see this. ibid.
The teeming seething activity of the vacuum of nothing, and the quantum fluctuations with it were the seeds – seeds which grew into the universe we see today. ibid.
The fact that nothingness – pure emptiness – a small but real mechanical force is surely one of Nature’s magic tricks. Jim Al-Khalili, Atom: The Illusion of Reality, BBC 2008
They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, of Bourbons in exile
How to live well on nothing a year. William Makepeace Thackery, Vanity Fair
What’s left is empty space, and as it turns out, empty space is not nothing, it’s something. Something with hidden characteristics as real as all the stuff in our everyday lives. In fact, space is so real it can bend, space can twist, and it can ripple. Brian Greene, Beyond the Cosmos, National Geographic 2012
Particles are constantly popping in and out of existence. They erupt out of nothingness, quickly annihilate each other and disappear. ibid.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. Socrates
Nothing to do with time,
Nothing to spend,
Nothing to do tomorrow or the day after,
Nothing to wear,
Can’t get married,
A living corpse, a unit of the spectral army of three million lost men. Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole, 1933
I was raised to feel that doing nothing was a sin. I had to learn to do nothing. Jenny Joseph, cited Observer 19th April 1998
To marvel at nothing is just about the one and only thing, Numicius, that can make a man happy and keep him that way. Horace, Epistles
We strain at achieving nothing: we seek happiness in boats and carriage rides. ibid.
Nothing is an unmixed blessing. Horace, Odes
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Lamentations 1:12
For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid. Job 6:21
O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth. Book of Mormon: Helaman 12:7
When you have nothing to say, say nothing. Charles Caleb Colton 1780-1832, Lacon, 1820
’Tis good to be sad and say nothing. As You Like It, Globe Theatre Sky Arts 2012, Jaques
But whate’er I be,
Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased
With being nothing. William Shakespeare, Richard II V v 38-41, Richard to self
Brutus: Didst thou see anything?
Lucius: Nothing, my lord. Julius Caesar, film version of RSC’s 2012 production, cobbler
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.
Hamlet: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
Ophelia: What is, my lord?
Hamlet: Nothing. William Shakespeare, Hamlet III ii 110-112
Hamlet: Do you see nothing there?
Queen: Nothing at all; yet all there is I see. ibid. Hamlet III iv 135
This nothing’s more the matter. ibid. IV v 170, Laertes
Nothing can be made of nothing. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear I iv 127, Lear
I am a fool; thou art nothing. ibid. I iv @187, Fool
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth V v 22 Macbeth
Nothing is but what is not. Macbeth 2001 starring Antony Sher & Harriet Walter, director Gregory Doran Roundhouse London, Macbeth
It were pity to cast them away for nothing, though between them and a great cause they should be esteemed nothing. William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra I ii 130-132, Enobarbus
Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful! Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot 1955
Nothing to be done. Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot ***** starring Stephen Brennan & Barry McGovern & Johnny Murphy & Sam McGovern et al, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Estragon’s opening line
In the meantime nothing happens. ibid. Estragon
Nothing is more real than nothing. Samuel Beckett
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. Samuel Beckett
Nothing, like something, happens anywhere. Philip Larkin, I Remember, I Remember, 1955
Unto the man of yearning thought
And aspiration to do nought
Is in itself almost an act. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Soothsay, 1881
Ere time and place were, time and place were not;
Where primitive nothing something straight begot;
Then all proceeded from the great united what. John Wilmot Lord Rochester, 1647-80, Upon Nothing, 1680
In the beginning there was nothing. Brian Cox, The Big Bang Machine, BBC 2008
For some theorists finding nothing at the LHC is actually the most exciting prospect. ibid.
The world owes me nothing. Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child
In modern physics, there is no such thing as nothing. Even in a perfect vacuum, pairs of virtual particles are constantly being created and destroyed. The existence of these particles is no mathematical fiction. Though they cannot be directly observed, the effects they create are quite real. The assumption that they exist leads to predictions that have been confirmed by experiment to a high degree of accuracy. Richard Morris