“There are two ways of spreading light: to be
The candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer
"Vesalius in Zante (1564)", in North American Review (November 1902), p. 631
Variant: There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it.
“that books were mirrors, reflective in sometimes unpredictable ways.”
Wally Lamb book I Know This Much Is True
Source: I Know This Much Is True
“Light propagates and spreads not only directly, through refraction, and reflection, but also by a fourth mode, diffraction.”
Lumen propagatur seu diffunditur non solum Directe, Refracte, ac Reflexe, sed etiam alio quodam quarto modo, Diffracte.
Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618–1663) Italian physicist
Physico-mathesis de lumine, coloribus, et iride, aliisque adnexis libri duo: opus posthumum, published in Bologna (1665), http://books.google.com/books?id=FzYVAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPP27,M1 Proposition I.
James Francis Stephens (1792–1852) British ornithologist and entomologist
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 115.
“(Windows work two ways, mirrors one way.)
You never walk through mirrors or swim through windows.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors
The Lords and the New Creatures: Poems (1969), The Lords: Notes on Vision
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
VI, 4
The Persian Bayán
Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher
Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 649
“It is not necessary to light a candle to the sun.”
Algernon Sidney (1623–1683) British politician and political theorist
Source: Discourses Concerning Government (1689), Ch. 2, Sect. 18; comparable to: "Like his that lights a candle to the sun", John Fletcher, Letter to Sir Walter Aston; "And hold their farthing candle to the sun", Edward Young, Satire vii. line 56.
