Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
A Death in the Desert (1864)
“I see at last that all the knowledgeI wrung from the darkness — that the darkness flung me —
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness.”
"90 North," lines 28-32
Blood for a Stranger (1942)
Context: I see at last that all the knowledgeI wrung from the darkness — that the darkness flung me —
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.
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Is worthless as ignora…" by Randall Jarrell?
Randall Jarrell215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965Related quotes
“This source is called darkness.
Darkness born from darkness.
The beginning of all understanding.”
Laozi book Tao Te Ching
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 1, as translated by J.H.McDonald (1996) http://www.wright-house.com/religions/taoism/tao-te-ching.html [Public domain translation] <br class="br">Context: The tao that can be described<br>is not the eternal Tao.<br>The name that can be spoken<br>is not the eternal Name.<br>The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth.<br>The named is the mother of creation.<br>Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery.<br>By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real.<br>Yet mystery and reality<br>emerge from the same source.<br>This source is called darkness.<br>Darkness born from darkness.<br>The beginning of all understanding.
Izumi Shikibu (976–1033) Japanese poet
Translated by Arthur Waley
"Said to be [Izumi Shikibu's] death-verse; the moon may refer to Buddha's teachings." Anthology Of Japanese Literature (1955) by Donald Keene, p. 92
“Light does not come from light, but from darkness.”
Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher
Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader
Holi Festival, Miami, Florida, on Sunday, April 1978, printed in Divine Times April/May 1978 Volume 7, Number 3
1970s
“You darkness, that I come from, I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
“We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.”
Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. As soon as we are born the return begins, at once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of life is death! But as soon as we are born we begin the struggle to create, to compose, to turn matter into life; we are born in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of ephemeral life is immortality! In the temporary living organism these two streams collide … both opposing forces are holy. It is our duty, therefore, to grasp that vision which can embrace and harmonize these two enormous, timeless, and indestructible forces, and with this vision to modulate our thinking and our action.
“Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.”
May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist