Literary notes about empty (AI summary)
The word “empty” in literature invites readers to explore both physical vacancies and inner voids. In many narratives, it describes tangible absences—a barren room, an unfilled vessel, or an abandoned space that mirrors isolation or decay ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]). At the same time, “empty” conveys abstract deficiencies: an unfulfilled heart, superficial confidence, or lifeless words that lack genuine substance ([6], [7], [8], [9]). Whether denoting a literal container without content ([10], [11]) or symbolizing an emotional or intellectual void ([12], [13]), the term deepens the narrative by contrasting presence with absence and imbuing scenes with an air of desolation or subtle critique ([14], [15]).
- Her legs and feet were bare, and, in her coarse, dirty red hands, she swung to and fro an empty glass decanter.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie - There was nobody there; the seat was empty.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - For one brief moment, Oliver cast a hurried glance along the empty street, and a cry for help hung upon his lips.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - Footsteps sounded hollow in the empty church.
— from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story - I turn back and look at the empty room: For a moment I almost think I see you there.
— from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems - It is your punishment to read this trivial page; but although my head is empty, my heart is not so, and it holds for you a very living friendship.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - 100.—Gallantry of mind is saying the most empty things in an agreeable manner.
— from Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims by François duc de La Rochefoucauld - “It’s a great pity if you can’t respect....” “Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - One more resolve had fizzled out in empty words.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - He took the bag, which happened to be empty, and after cutting a big hole at the top and two at the sides, he slipped into it as if it were a shirt.
— from The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi - On the upper shelf a battery of jamjars (empty) of various sizes and proveniences.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - It seems to me that a man must have faith, or must search for a faith, or his life will be empty, empty....
— from Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - She was a poor, empty-headed, spiritless woman—what you call a born drudge—and I was now and then not averse to plaguing her by taking Anne away.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Mentor leaves him with an empty boast; The four remain, but four against an host.
— from The Odyssey by Homer - Yet they liked to know it was there, large and empty.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
