Light quotes
8.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside light — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Degrade first the Arts if you'd Mankind Degrade. Hire Idiots to Paint with cold light & hot shade: Give high Price for the worst, leave the best in disgrace, And with Labours of Ignorance fill every place."
"O would, beloved, that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one."
"I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb."
"Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose."
". . .in August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and---from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. It lasts just for a day or two, then it’s gone. . .the title reminded me of that time, of a luminosity older than our Christian civilization."
"When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow."
"Memory believes before knowing remembers. [Light in August]"
"A flock of blessings light upon thy back"
"As there comes light from heaven and words from breath, As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue"
"Dream in light years, challenge miles, walk step by step"
"I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me: but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume."
"What is light, if Sylvia be not seen? What is joy if Sylvia be not by?"
"All the contagion of the south light on you, You shames of Rome! you herd of--boils and plagues Plaster you o'er; that you may be abhorr'd Further than seen, and one infect another Against the wind a mile!"
"For youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears, Than settled age his sables, and his weeds Importing health and graveness."
"So doth the greater glory dim the less: A substitute shines brightly as a king Until a king be by."
"To die, is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her, Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection. Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive."
"Thus weary of the world, away she hies, And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid Their mistress mounted through the empty skies In her light chariot quickly is convey'd; Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen Means to immure herself and not be seen."
"A hundred thousand welcomes: I could weep, And I could laugh; I am light and heavy: Welcome."
"To pore upon a book, to seek the light of truth."
"Light and lust are deadly enemies."
