Light quotes
8.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside light — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Only that, nothing more - a tiny beam of light to show some hidden aspect of reality, to help decipher and understand it and thus to initiate, if possible, a change in the conscience of some readers."
"Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high."
"...those experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give more light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion."
"Pending catastrophe is not an easy notion to entertain, much less sustain. Americans, moreover, have a low tolerance for doom and gloom. We are the nation of optimism, after all. We elect leaders who promise hope and change. We are the shining city on a hill. But what happens when the lights go out?"
"The great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking."
"The buried truth germinates and breaks through to the light."
"Unmixed praise is not due to any one. It leaves behind a sense of unreality. We can only do justice to a great man by a discriminating criticism. Hero-worship, which paints a faultless monster, whom the world never saw, is like those modern pictures which are a blaze of light without any shadow."
"Light burdens, long borne, grow heavy."
"Monarch of earth, I shall confess my secret craft: I've always fought to purify wild flame to light, and kindle whatever light I found to burst in flame."
"Wealth brings a heavy purse; poverty, a light spirit."
"Love is a brilliant illustration of a principle everywhere discoverable: namely, that human reason lives by turning the friction of material forces into the light of ideal goods."
"The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything."
"When you call me close to tell me your body is not beautiful I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you."
"After painting comes Sculpture, a very noble art, but one that does not in the execution require the same supreme ingenuity as the art of painting, since in two most important and difficult particulars, in foreshortening and in light and shade, for which the painter has to invent a process, sculpture is helped by nature. Moreover, Sculpture does not imitate color which the painter takes pains to attune so that the shadows accompany the lights."
"Hope lights a candle instead of cursing the darkness."
"It is a thorough process, this war with the wilderness - breaking nature, taming the soil. feeding it on oats. The civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy. He will fell it and let in the light, grub it up and raise wheat or rye there. It is no better than a fungus to him."
"Authors of light pieces have, nobody knows why, a genius for getting into minor difficulties: they walk into the wrong apartments, they drink furniture polish for stomach bitters, they drive their cars into the prize tulip beds of haughty neighbors, they playfully slap gangsters, mistaking them for old school friends."
"Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out."
"Helena (Bonham Carter) is one of the coolest kindest women I've ever met. We had so much fun. She has the best sense of humor. I loved her fairy godmother. It came at a point during night shoots where I was exhausted. It was trippy, weird and cold ... and then Helena showed up. It was like this bright light on the horizon; it was wonderful."
"The age calls for simple statements and restatements of simple truths. The prophets of doom are involved, those who would bring light must be clear."
