Abstract Riddles

I am always coming but never arrive. I am always passing but never gone. Everyone wants more of me but no one can hold me. What am I?

I travel on air but have no wings. I can make you cry or dance. I have no language yet I am understood everywhere. What am I?

I am the price you pay for love. The greater the love, the heavier I am. I am not an illness yet I can break the strongest person. What am I?

I feed no one yet I have sustained millions through famine. I cure nothing yet the sick hold onto me. I cost nothing yet I am priceless. What am I?

I am not the absence of fear but the decision to act despite it. Animals have instinct, but only people truly have me. What am I?

Some refuse to see me even when I am directly in front of them. I hurt at first but heal in the long run. I am the same for everyone, even when people disagree. What am I?

I am born in an instant and can live forever. I never breathe yet I spread faster than disease. One of me can destroy a lifetime's reputation. What am I?

I am contagious but I am not an illness. I am free yet I am said to be the best medicine. I escape at the worst possible moments. What am I?

I am the loudest thing in an empty room. I am what you hear when all sound is gone. I am uncomfortable for many yet peaceful for few. What am I?

I have no weight yet I can crush you. I have no arms yet I can embrace you. I live in your mind but affect your whole body. What am I?

I exist all around you but I have no colour of my own. Without me you would see no colour at all. I am destroyed by darkness yet I create it. What am I?

I am the most important element in music yet I make no sound. Without me, music would be just noise. Composers place me as carefully as any note. What am I?

I say one thing and mean another — but not to deceive. I am the engine of poetry and the heart of all storytelling. I am how the mind makes sense of the unfamiliar. What am I?

I am the one thing no language can translate. I am what exists between words. In some cultures I am companionable; in others I am awkward. What am I?

Shakespeare called me the green-eyed monster. I poison what I touch. I am a sign that you care — but also that you do not trust. What am I?

I am a longing for a time that may never have been quite as good as I remember. I make the past warmer than it was. I am a kind of beautiful sadness. What am I?

I am the ability to feel what another person feels. I require imagination as well as feeling. I am what separates compassion from pity. What am I?

I am the emotion that lives permanently in the past. I change nothing yet I am one of the strongest motivators. The things that cause me most are usually the things we did not do. What am I?

I am the feeling that drives both science and art. I am what a child feels at their first snowfall. I require that you do not already know the answer. What am I?

I am the deadliest of the seven deadly sins yet I feel like a virtue. A little of me is healthy; too much of me destroys. I come before a fall. What am I?

I am bigger than any number you can name, yet some of me are bigger than others. I am not a number yet mathematicians work with me every day. What am I?

I can start a war or end one. I can heal a wound that no medicine can touch. I cannot be unsaid. Billions of me are spoken every minute. What am I?

I am not an action, I am what an action becomes. I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I take weeks to make and a lifetime to break. What am I?

I am medicine that is completely free. I is contagious in the best way. I can defuse a crisis in an instant. I is uniquely human in its complexity. What am I?

I am a story your body tells without words. I am proof that something happened and that you survived it. I fade over time but never quite disappear. What am I?

I am made in seven seconds and can last a lifetime. I cannot be unmade. You make me about everyone you meet and everyone makes one of you. What am I?