Quotes about light

A collection of quotes on the topic of light, lighting, dark, darkness.

Best quotes about light

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

“Light tomorrow with today.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

“Let nothing dim the light that shines from within”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Variant: Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.

“We are all broken—that’s how the light gets in.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

This quotation was not crafted by Ernest Hemingway. Its exact genesis is uncertain, but QI hypothesizes that the 1929 statement by Hemingway and the 1992 lyric by Leonard Cohen both strongly influenced the evolution of the expression and its ascription. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/11/16/light/

“I'm walking on the sky I see the moon I see the light”

Gigi D'Agostino (1967) Italian DJ

Suono Libero
Source: da Walking n° 15 cd 1

“Life is a winking light in the darkness.”

Hayao Miyazaki Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Opening lines.
Source: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

“Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Nikola Tesla quote: “If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world.”

Quotes about light

“Soon the crashes, the blackouts, the hypothermias, the demands for public lighting and a lot of misdeeds will hide the disappearances, the plots, the deaths, the domestic violence, the corruptions and a long etcetera…”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

Death

“Women are beautiful in the light of the day, but are even more so in the shadows of the night.”

Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer

Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

Women, Beauty, Night

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."
1960s
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Motivational, Inspirational, Attitude, Success

“If you look at the darkness, not light, every day, your life will be filled with darkness.”

Miyuru Amarasiri (2002) Artist

Coos, "Miyuru Amarasiri," https://www.coos.com/quotes/if-you-look-at-the-darkness-not-light-every-day-your-life-will-be-filled-with-darkness-%E2%80%95-miyuru-bhashitha-amarasiri June 10, 2021,

Life

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

Travel, Thinking, Waiting

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Love

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

World

“Mozart didn't need a scheme for his music. He played and sang with the heavenly lightness of a child.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Mozart brauchte kein Programm für seine Musik. Er musizierte und sang mit der göttlichen Leichtigkeit eines Kindes.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Music

“We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

World, Hope, Parting

“Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.”

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) austrian painter

“Your kisses lift me higher… like the sweet song of a choir. You light my morning sky, with burning love.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Love, Kiss

“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Love, Life, World, Religion

“There is no need to carry me to another prison. My life is already ebbing away. I suggest that you nail me to a cross and burn me alive. My flaming body will be a torch to light my people on their path to freedom.”

Gavrilo Princip (1894–1918) Bosnian assassin

Said to the prison warden on being moved to another prison; as quoted by Borivoje Jevtic (1914) http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand

Life, People, Freedom

“The future's too bright to dwell on the past. Life moves fast, run faster.”

Frank Iero (1981) American musician

Life, Past, Future

“If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Hate, World

“Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

"Getting into Print", first published in 1903 in The Editor magazine
Variant: You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Context: Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
Context: Fiction pays best of all and when it is of fair quality is more easily sold. A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem, and, measured in sweat and blood, will bring better remuneration. Avoid the unhappy ending, the harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrible - if you care to see in print things you write. (In this connection don't do as I do, but do as I say.) Humour is the hardest to write, easiest to sell, and best rewarded... Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Faith, Faith, Feeling, Bird

“so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos…

So ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

World, Perfection, Forgetting

“Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air, new lights and new truths to enter.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Walking the Path of Compassion (2015)

Truth

“One day I went alone to the river to enjoy myself as usual. When I was a short distance from the masonry, however, I was horrified to observe that the water had risen and was carrying me along swiftly.… The pressure against my chest was great and I was barely able to keep my head above the surface.… Slowly and gradually I became exhausted and unable to withstand the strain longer. Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic principle that the pressure of a fluid in motion is proportionate to the area exposed and automatically I turned on my left side. As if by magic, the pressure was reduced.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Water

“My home shall be open for the sun and the wind and the voices of the sea - like a Greek temple - and light, light, light everywhere!”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Home, Sea, Sun

“The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

Art, Sense, Learning

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Life, Soul

“Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Life

“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Anthem"
The Future (1992)

Depressing, Perfection, Forgetting

“With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid, and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

Stupidity, Feeling

“There could be whole antiworlds and antipeople made out of antiparticles. However, if you meet your antiself, don’t shake hands! You would both vanish in a great flash of light.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time

“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Variant: Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

Family, Friendship, Missing You, Cute

“It is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

For Men, Tree, Evil

“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

People

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Powerful, Teachers' Day, For Parents, Education

“Angels, living light most glorious!
Beneath the Godhead in burning desire
in the darkness and mystery of creation
you look on the eye of your God
never taking your fill:
What glorious pleasures take shape within you!”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

"O gloriosissimi"

God, Pleasure, Angels

“(…) Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. (…).”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Mind
Source: I am That, P.188.

“There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Hope, Faith, and Love (c. 1786); also known as "The Words of Strength", as translated in The Common School Journal Vol. IX (1847) edited by Horace Mann, p. 386
Context: There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, —
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, —
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The habitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one,
But men, as man, thy brothers call;
And scatter, like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all. Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, —
Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.

Men, Heart

“Words are life. Words are light. Words are power. Words are energy. Words are truth. Words can enliven and words can also kill. Words can give hope, or plunge us into despair. People use words to build peace, and use words to make war. Words can create walls between cultures, religions, and nations. And words can also build bridges. The existence of an individual, a family, a community, a country, and our planet is being led to good or to evil through the power of the words we speak. The words we speak are responsible for everything that happens in this world. We, therefore, must be responsible for the words we speak. On behalf of future generations, I hope that each of us will do all we can to speak only bright, light-filled words, so that one day, our descendants will be born into a world filled with light. There is no time to lose. Starting at this very moment, I hope all of us will take a close look at the words we have been using and make constant efforts to fill them with brightness.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Despair, Family, Peace, Religion

“Time is the architect of fate,
fleeting omen, pure phantom
in enchanting light of absence,
and our life the play of love and death,
only love will never die,
because In love no longer ‘thou’ and ‘I’ exist,
only the blossom of sacred unity.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://hellopoetry.com/alexis-karpouzos/

Time, Death, Fate, Love

“I've got this light | I'll be around to grow | Who I was before | I cannot recall.”

Eddie Vedder (1964) musician, songwriter, member of Pearl Jam

“You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Source: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers

Truth

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Inspirational, Deep, Wise, Depressing

“Let me light my lamp", says the star, "And never debate if it will help to remove the darkness”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Star, Help

“It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Variant: Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.
Source: This is My Story

“But I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple.

"And, Sassenach," he whispered, "your face is my heart.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Variant: I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple. "And Sassenach," he whispered, "Your face is my heart.
Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Soul, Heart

“One loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss perhaps.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Source: The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

Life, Dreams, Flowers, Loss

The quote is mistakenly attributed to the author

“She was a wild, wicked slip of a girl. She burned too brightly for this world.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Variant: She burned too bright for this world.
Source: The quote is attributed to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, but only first part appears in book. https://books.google.pl/books?id=Aiye9MLNh9EC&q=wild%2C+wicked+slip#v=snippet&q=wild%2C%20wicked%20slip&f=false

World, Girl

“Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.”

Russell Kirk (1918–1994) American political theorist and writer

Men

“Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and innocent vanities, and irony itself-- do these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him?”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Life, Fish, Sun, Holiday

“In this world, whenever there is light, there are also shadows. As long as the concept of winners exist, there must also be losers. The selfish desire of wanting to maintain peace causes wars and hatred is born to protect love.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Love, War, World, Peace

“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“In my mind's eye my thoughts light fires in your cities.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

“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.

Love, Night

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Learning, Reading

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Source: In Country Sleep, and Other Poems

Good Night, For Father, Rage, Night

“In us there is the Light of Nature, and that Light is God.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

God, Nature

“The light has gone out of my life.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Entry in Roosevelt's diary, before which he put a large X, on 14 February 1884, the day in which both his mother and wife died within hours of each other.
1880s

Life

“What is destined to happen will happen. Victory and defeat are like light and darkness.”

N. T. Rama Rao (1923–1996) Indian actor and Andhra Pradesh former chief minister

His own family toppled him, quoted in Obituary: N. T. Rama Rao, 19 January 1996, 8 January 2014, Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-n-t-rama-rao-1324748.html,

Victory

“The things that change are not our real life. Within us there is another body, another beauty. It belongs to that ray of light which never changes. We must discover how to mingle with it and become one with that unchanging thing. We must realize and understand this treasure of truth. That is why we have come to the world.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Life, Truth, World, Beauty

“In 1977 the black-out was lifted. It was done by R. S. C., Ord. 53. The curtains were drawn back. The light was let in. Our administrative law became well-organised and comprehensive. It enabled the High Court to review the decisions of all inferior courts and tribunals and to quash them when they went wrong. And what is more, it enabled the High Court to award damages and grant declarations. No longer is it necessary to bring an ordinary action to obtain damages or declarations. It can all be done by judicial review. This new remedy (by judicial review) has made the old remedy (by action at law) superfluous.”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

O'Reilly v. Mackman, [1983] 2 A.C. 238.
Judgments

Law, Decision

“It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.”

Woody Allen book Side Effects

"The UFO Menace".
Side Effects (1980)

Travel

“I judged the Poles by their enemies. And I found it was an almost unfailing- truth that their enemies were the enemies of magna- nimity and manhood. If a man loved slavery, if he loved usury, if he loved terrorism and all the trampled mire of materialistic politics, I have always found that he added to these affections the passion of a hatred of Poland. She could be judged in the light of that hatred; and the judgment has proved to be right.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Letters on Polish Affairs (1922)
Source: https://archive.org/stream/lettersonpolisha00sarouoft/lettersonpolisha00sarouoft_djvu.txt

Love, Truth, Passion

“Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,"You owe me."Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.”

Hafez (1326–1389) Persian poet

From Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift: Poems by Hafiz https://books.google.com/books?id=_cdWZkYE_ZQC (1999), p. 34. This is not a translation or interpretation of any poem by Hafez; http://www.payvand.com/news/09/apr/1266.html it is an original poem by Ladinsky inspired by the spirit of Hafez in a dream. Misattributed

Love, Time, Sun

“Jesus will take me safe trough… I shall see Jesus, who created all things, Jesus, who made the worlds; I shall see Him as He is;… Yes; I have had the Light for many years, and Oh! how bright it is! I feel SO SAFE, SO SATISFIED.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

His last words, as quoted in The Home Life of Sir David Brewster (2010), by his daughter, Margaret Maria Gordon. Cambridge University Press. Chapter XXI.

World, Feeling

“It is time, love, to break off that sombre rose,
shut up the stars and bury the ash in the earth;
and, in the rising of the light, wake with those who awoke
or go on in the dream, reaching the other shore of the sea which has no other shore.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Es la hora, amor mío, de apartar esta rosa sombría,
cerrar las estrellas, enterrar la ceniza en la tierra:
y, en la insurrección de la luz, despertar con los que despertaron
o seguir en el sueño alcanzando la otra orilla del mar que no tiene otra orilla.
La Barcarola Termina (The Watersong Ends) (1967), trans. Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 500).

Love, Dreams, Star, Time

“On Monday the 9th of the first Jumada, we got out of the suburbs of Agra, on our journey (safar) for the Holy War, and dismounted in the open country, where we remained three or four days to collect our army and be its rallying-point…On this occasion I received a secret inspiration and heard an infallible voice say: 'Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of Allah, and that truth which hath been revealed? Thereupon we set ourselves to extirpate the things of wickedness…
Above all, adequate thanks cannot be rendered for a benefit than which none is greater in the world and nothing is more blessed, in the world to come, to wit, victory over most powerful infidels and dominion over wealthiest heretics, these are the unbelievers, the wicked.'In the eyes of the judicious, no blessing can be greater than this…. Previous to the rising in Hindustan of the Sun of dominion and the emergence there of the light of the Shahansha's (i. e. Babur's) Khalifate the authority of that execrated pagan (Sanga) - at the Judgment Day he shall have no friend - was such that not one of all the exalted sovereigns of this wide realm, such as the Sultan of Delhi, the Sultan of Gujarat and the Sultan of Mandu, could cope with this evil-dispositioned one, without the help of other pagans…
Ten powerful chiefs, each the leader of a pagan host, uprose in rebellion, as smoke rises, and linked themselves, as though enchained, to that perverse one (Sanga); and this infidel decade who, unlike the blessed ten, uplifted misery-freighted standards which denounce unto them excruciating punishment, had many dependents, and troops, and wide-extended lands…. The protagonists of the royal forces fell, like divine destiny, on that one-eyed Dajjal who to understanding men, shewed the truth of the saying, When Fate arrives, the eye becomes blind, and setting before their eyes the scripture which saith, whosoever striveth to promote the true religion, striveth for the good of his own soul, they acted on the precept to which obedience is due, Fight against infidels and hypocrites…
The pagan right wing made repeated and desperate attack on the left wing of the army of Islam, falling furiously on the holy warriors, possessors of salvation, but each time was made to turn back or, smitten with the arrows of victory, was made to descend into Hell, the house of perdition: they shall be thrown to bum therein, and an unhappy dwelling shall it be. Then the trusty amongst the nobles, Mumin Ataka and Rustam Turkman betook themselves to the rear of the host of darkened pagans…
At the moment when the holy warriors were heedlessly flinging away their lives, they heard a secret voice say, Be not dismayed, neither be grieved, for, if ye believe, ye shall be exalted above the unbelievers, and from the infallible Informer heard the joyful words, Assistance is from Allah, and a speedy victory! And do thou bear glad tiding to true believers. Then they fought with such delight that the plaudits of the saints of the Holy Assembly reached them and the angels from near the Throne, fluttered round their heads like moths.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.

Men, Fate, War, Truth

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" (1992), Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power, p. 190 (p. 165 in some editions). This famous passage from her book is very often erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela. About the mis-attribution Williamson said, "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."

Variant which appears in the film Coach Carter (2005): "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Variant which appears in the film Akeelah and the Bee (2006), displayed in a picture frame on the wall, attributing it to Mandela: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

God, Children, People, World

“I dream that one day
we will look at each other
in the same way we look at the sun,
and we will touch each other
like the sun on earth,
and the blessings of light
will flow into our hearts.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Sun, Dreams, Heart, Way

“My child, let your life come into the world of darkness
like a spark of light, without flicker and pure,
and thank them in silence. You know,
my child, they are cruel in their greed and envy,
their words are disguised knives thirsting for blood.
But do not be afraid, my child, go and stand in their hearts,
and let your gentle eyes fall on them like the forgiving serenity of the night.
My child, let them see your face and so they know it
meaning of all things, let them love and love one another.
Go, at sunrise, open and lift up your heart like a blooming flower,
and at sunset, bend your head and silently complete the worship of the day.
Remember, my child, gods and demons, ghosts and elves are fragments of one,
built by the hand of the abyss.
So, move on, go to the shore of the vast darkness,
there, is the Great Meeting of Children,
there, the sea gives a smile to the beach,
there, sing the waves facing death.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://dailywisdomwords.com/community-poetry/my-child/

God, Silence, Children, Flowers

“We are the gleam of invinite,
the breath of light,
the spark of life,
the chain of being,
the circle of the spheres,
the scale of creation,
the rise and fall.
We are what we are
and we are not.
We are the soul in all.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://hellopoetry.com/alexis-karpouzos/

Soul, Life

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://hellopoetry.com/alexis-karpouzos/

Soul, Life

“Enlightenment is the result of accepting to receive the light from the Most High.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

https://twitter.com/wise_chimp/status/1488946174321205253?s=21

“What glorious light, wisdom without bound, wrapt in eternal solitary shade.”

Franco Battiato (1945) Italian singer-songwriter, composer, and filmmaker

Source: da I'm that)

Wisdom

“Your wide eyes are the only light I know from extinguished constellations.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Wedding

“When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Leadership, Feeling

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”

C.G. Jung book Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Variant: ‎"... the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), p. 326

“Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

World, Childhood

“If you go on working with the light available, you will meet your Master, as he himself will be seeking you.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

“Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.”

Stefan Zweig book The World of Yesterday

Source: The World of Yesterday

Life, War, Peace, Personality

“There's unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lot but it's real with me and her [June Carter]. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself. She has saved my life more than once. She's always been there with her love, and it has certainly made me forget the pain for a long time, many times. When it gets dark and everybody's gone home and the lights are turned off, it's just me and her.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Love, Life, Pain, Home

“Evil cannot and will not be vanquished by evil. Dark will only swallow dark and deepen. The good and the light are the keenest weapons.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Heaven and Earth

Evil

“Science needs the light of free expression to flourish. It depends on the fearless questioning of authority, and the open exchange of ideas.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Source: Cosmos

Idea, Question, Science, Dependency

“Without reading, we are all without light in the dark, without fire in the cold.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Source: Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales

Reading

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life, Thinking, Dead

“The sun is a thief: she lures the sea
and robs it. The moon is a thief:
he steals his silvery light from the sun.
The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

Sun, Sea

“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

Widely known as The Prayer of St. Francis, it is not found in Esser's authoritative collection of Francis's writings. [Fr. Kajetan, Esser, OFM, ed., Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis, Rome, Grottaferrata, 1978]. Additionally there is no record of this prayer before the twentieth century. [Fr. Regis J., Armstrong, OFM, Francis and Clare: The Complete Works, New York, Paulist Press, 1982, 10, 0-8091-2446-7]. Dr. Christian Renoux of the University of Orleans in France traces the origin of the prayer to an anonymous 1912 contributor to La Clochette, a publication of the Holy Mass League in Paris. It was not until 1927 that it was attributed to St. Francis. The Origin of the Peace Prayer of St. Francis, 2013-06-28, Renoux, Christian http://www.franciscan-archive.org/franciscana/peace.html,. [Christian, Renoux, La prière pour la paix attribuée à saint François: une énigme à résoudre, Paris, Editions franciscaines, 2001, 2-85020-096-4]. Misattributed

Love, Life, Sadness, Peace

“My wish for you… is that your skeptic-eclectic brain be flooded with the light of truth.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book The First Circle

Source: The First Circle

Truth

“Light travels faster than sound. Isn't that why people appear bright before you hear them speak?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

People, Travel, Appearance, Funny

“Light up the darkness.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“From love's plectrum arises
the song of the string of life
Love is the light of life
love is the fire of life”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

Love, Life

“I can't think of anything to write about, I'm just walking around here between the lines, under the light of your eyes, in the breadth of your mouth as in a beautiful happy day, which remains beautiful and happy, even when the head is sick and tired.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Beauty, Thinking, Happiness

“You can't stop time. You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down.”

Kim Edwards book The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Time

“Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash.”

Louis Aragon (1897–1982) French poet, novelist and editor

Source: Paris Peasant

Life, People, Truth, Error

“There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Time

“J. M. W. Turner's Poem dedicated to Ivan Aivazovsky (1842)

Like a curtain slowly drawn
It stops suddenly half open,
Or, like grief itself, filled with gentle hope,
It becomes lighter in the shore-less dark,
Thus the moon barely wanes
Winding her way above the storm-tossed sea.
Stand upon this hill and behold endlessly
This scene of a formidable sea,
And it will seem to thee a waking dream.
That secret mind flowing in thee
Which even the day cannot scatter,
The serenity of thinking and the beating of the heart
Will enchain thee in this vision;
This golden-silver moon
Standing lonely over the sea,
All curtain the grief of even the hopeless.
And it appears that through the tempest
Moves a light caressing wind,
While the sea swells up with a roar,
Sometimes, like a battlefield it looks to me
The tempestuous sea,
Where the moon itself is a brilliant golden crown
Of a great king.
But even that moon is always beneath thee
Oh Master most high,
Oh forgive thou me
If even this master was frightened for a moment
Oh, noble moment, by art betrayed…
And how may one not delight in thee,
Oh thou young boy, but forgive thou me,
If I shall bend my white head
Before thy art divine
Thy bliss-wrought genius…”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Source: J.M.W. Turner

Secret, Dreams, Hope, Art

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

As quoted in The Leader's Digest : Timeless Principles for Team and Organization (2003) by Jim Clemmer, p. 84

Beauty, People, Beauty, Sun

“None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.”

Dean Koontz book One Door Away from Heaven

Source: One Door Away from Heaven (2001), chapter 73, pp. 604, 605
Context: What will you find behind the door that is one door away from Heaven? […] If your heart is closed, then you will find behind that door nothing to light your way. But if your heart is open, you will find behind that door people who, like you, are searching, and you will find the right door together with them. None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another's salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.

Hope

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Variant: Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Source: Mostly Harmless

Law, Travel, Speed

“I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Source: The Dance of the Soul

Love, Life, Death, Men

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Romeo, Act II, scene ii.
Variant: What light through yonder window breaks?
Source: Romeo and Juliet (1595)

Sun