“What is to give light must endure burning.”

—  Viktor E. Frankl

Last update June 28, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What is to give light must endure burning." by Viktor E. Frankl?
Viktor E. Frankl photo
Viktor E. Frankl 64
Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust surviv… 1905–1997

Related quotes

Thomas Watson photo

“When zeal like incense burns, first the lamp of knowledge must be lighted.”

Thomas Watson (1616–1686) English nonconformist preacher and author

Heaven Taken By Storm

Denise Levertov photo

“Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney's shadow.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus (1981); Online excerpt http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16007

Ella Wheeler Wilcox photo

“Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth
Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning.
And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth,
There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Give
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)

Roald Dahl photo

“my candle burns at both ends it will not last the night but arh my friends and oh my foes it gives a lovely light”

Roald Dahl book Boy

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.
Misattributed
Variant: My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
Source: Boy: Tales of Childhood

Edna St. Vincent Millay photo

“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay book A Few Figs from Thistles

Misattributed
Source: Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.

Christopher Hitchens photo

“I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

I.
2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012)

Jim Steinman photo

“The icy cold will cut us like a knife in the dark
And we may lose everything in the wind
But the Northern Lights are burning
And they're giving off sparks.”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

"Bad for Good"
Bad for Good (1981)

Alice Walker photo

“When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
Willingly burning my self
To light up the darkness around me.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist
Pablo Neruda photo

“Only with a burning patience can we conquer the splendid City which will give light, justice and dignity to all mankind. In this way the song will not have been sung in vain.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Sólo con una ardiente paciencia conquistaremos la espléndida ciudad que dará luz, justicia y dignidad a todos los hombres. Así la poesía no habrá cantado en vano.
Nobel lecture, Hacia la ciudad espléndida (Towards the Splendid City) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-lecture.html (13 December 1971). In the passage directly preceding these words, Neruda identified the source of his allusion:<p>"It is today exactly one hundred years since an unhappy and brilliant poet, the most awesome of all despairing souls, wrote down this prophecy: 'À l'aurore, armés d'une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes.' 'In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities.' I believe in this prophecy of Rimbaud, the Visionary." (Hace hoy cien años exactos, un pobre y espléndido poeta, el más atroz de los desesperados, escribió esta profecía: "À l'aurore, armes d'une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes". "Al amanecer, armados de una ardiente paciencia, entraremos a las espléndidas ciudades." Yo creo en esa profecía de Rimbaud, el Vidente.)<p>The quotation is from Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Adieu" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Une_saison_en_Enfer#Adieu from Une Saison en Enfer (1873).

Related topics