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Light quotes

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“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice” - 1600

“Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.” John Milton, “Paradise Lost” - 1667

“There are darknesses in life, and there are lights. You are one of the lights.” Bram Stoker, “Dracula” - 1897

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” - 1877

“It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.” Woody Allen, “Side Effects” - 1980

“Only light, or other waves that have no intrinsic mass, can move at the speed of light.” Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time” - 1988

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” John Steinbeck, “The Winter of Our Discontent” - 1961

“Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.” Albert Camus, “The Fall” - 1956

“in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Return of the King” - 1955

“To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“He who tries to shine dims his own light.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“I believe in low lights and trick mirrors.” Andy Warhol, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” - 1975

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” - 1952

“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.” Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Hound of the Baskervilles” - 1902

“Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to make for light.” Jack London, “White Fang” - 1906

“Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needs be delightful and rejoicing.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“Beyond the range I saw the so-called Mono Desert, lying dreamily silent in thick purple light—a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.” John Muir, “The Mountains of California” - 1894

“This was the alpenglow, to me one of the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed and waiting like devout...” John Muir, “The Mountains of California” - 1894

“A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence of glare.” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light.” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“Let us gather together in the great cities, and light huge bonfires of a million gas-jets, and shout and sing together, and feel brave.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men in a Boat” - 1889

“Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special effects, but always keeps its essential object in the purest white light of truth.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” - 1858

“Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.” Frederick Douglass, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” - 1845

“The moonlight lay everywhere with the natural peace that is granted to no other light.” Franz Kafka, “The Trial” - 1925

“The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“I liked the area, it had great shade trees, and since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favours such a confidence.” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.” Samuel Beckett, “Waiting for Godot” - 1953

“Thus the sun which possesses light perfectly, can shine by itself; whereas the moon which has the nature of light imperfectly, sheds only a borrowed light.” Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica” - 1274

“A fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in Laura: she is like a piece of translucent glass touched by light, given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting.” Tennessee Williams, “The Glass Menagerie” - 1944

“The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it... and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.” John F. Kennedy, “Inaugural Address” - 20 January 1961

“May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring” - 1954

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“There is always light behind the clouds.” Louisa May Alcott, “Little Women” - 1868

“the cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.” Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities” - 1859

“desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it—but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you've got the...” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Beautiful and Damned” - 1922

“The sun—the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and...” Charles Dickens, “Oliver Twist” - 1838

Related topics

darkness sun life truth God beauty hope speed obscurity love appearance fear care meaning sight virtue evil desire philosophy world

Related authors

William Shakespeare (2)
Charles Dickens (2)
John Muir (2)
Blaise Pascal (2)
J. R. R. Tolkien (2)
John Steinbeck (2)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1)
Jack London (1)
David Hume (1)
Bram Stoker (1)
Joseph Conrad (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Leo Tolstoy (1)
Edith Wharton (1)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1)
Jerome K. Jerome (1)
Frederick Douglass (1)
Franz Kafka (1)

Related sources

The Mountains of California (2)
Pensées (2)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
The Merchant of Venice (1)
The Beautiful and Damned (1)
Oliver Twist (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1)
White Fang (1)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1)
Dracula (1)
Heart of Darkness (1)
Little Women (1)
Anna Karenina (1)
The Age of Innocence (1)
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1)
Three Men in a Boat (1)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1)
The Trial (1)
Inaugural Address (1)