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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"Oh, this faithless world! Someone must deliver them. You. If not you, who? You have been saved for a reason. Show them the old demons. Remind them of their fear. Apathy is death. Without darkness, there is no light. Without evil, there is no good. Make them choose. Dark or light. Where is the fear? Where are the heroes? If not now, when?"
"Americanization means the process of becoming an American. It means civic incorporation, becoming a part of the polity - becoming one of us. But that does not mean conformity. We are more than a melting pot, we are a kaleidoscope, where every turn of history refracts new light on the old promise."
"The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation."
"He [Stephen Douglas] is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national."
"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."
"In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour."
"You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light."
"So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it."
"The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself."
"The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion... One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it."
"A Toad, can die of Light - Death is the Common Right Of Toads and Men"
"When a theater goes dark for the night, a stagehand leaves a lighted lamp on stage. No one knows why any more, but some old timers say it is to keep the ghosts away. Others say it lights the stage for the ghosts to play. Whichever theory one adheres to, most people agree: a great theater is haunted."
"But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain."
"Lady, the sun's light to our eyes is dear, And fair the tranquil reaches of the sea, And flowery earth in May, and bounding waters; And so right many fair things I might praise; Yet nothing is so radiant and so fair As for souls childless, with desire sore-smitten, To see the light of babes about the house."
"A little light, like a rushlight / to lead back to splendour."
"I once saw a small child go to an electric light switch as say, Mamma, can I open the light? She was using the age-old language of exploration, the language of art."
"The book shd. be a ball of light in one's hand."
"Poetry is a sequence of dots and dashes, spelling depths, crypts, cross-lights, and moon wisps."
"Polly Findlay showed real insight and imagination in her production of my translation of Seneca's Thyestes at the Arcola. I enjoyed her use of the space and the detail of her work with the actors, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with Light Shining."
"It is the lot of man to suffer; it is also his fortune to forget. Oblivion and sorrow share our being, as darkness and light divide the course of time."
