Quotes about light
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“Character forms a life regardless of how obscurely that life is lived and how little light falls on it from the stars.”

James Hillman (1926–2011) American psychologist

Life, Star

“By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone…
But I will bend the light, pretend that it somehow lingered on”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Source: John Mayer: Heavier Things

Time

“You have to find what sparks a light in you so that you in your own way can illuminate the world.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

World, Way

“He was handsome then if never before, bound for one of those immortal moments which come so radiantly that their remembered light is enough to see by for years.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

“Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

Sadness, Joy

“Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light? Or just another lost angel… City of Night?”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Angels, Night

“If you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Reading

“I'm in love with someone good and kind and gentle, and he's seen the darkness too, but somehow we've become each other's light.”

Emma Forrest (1976) British journalist, novelist and screenwriter

Source: Your Voice in My Head

Love

“What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Children, Color, Mathematics

“Hush little baby, Dont you cry, Dont cut your arms, Dont say goodbye. Put down that razor, Put down that light, It maybe hard but, You'll win this fight.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Fight, Baby, Cry

“Real courage is not to give up hope, even in the most terrible darkness, and to carry on. That if courage and love is deep as despair, deeper, then light may come again”

David Clement-Davies book Fell

Source: Fell

Love, Hope, Courage, Despair

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

" Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=92" (1952) Source: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Age, Rage, Night

“A Warrior of Light values a child's eyes because they are able to look at the world without bitterness. When he wants to find out if the person beside him is worthy of his trust, he tries to see him as a child would”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

World, Personality

“The dark does not weep for itself because there is no light. Rather, it accepts that it is the dark. It is said that even the gods must die." He winks. "But not without one hell of a fight.””

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 365

God, Hell, Fight

“Truth brought to public light recruits the best of us to work for change. On the other hand, even the best-intentioned "noble lie" ultimately discredits the finest of causes.”

Christina Hoff Sommers (1950) American author and philosopher

Source: Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women

Truth, Lie, Change

“They say rather than cursing the darkness, one should light a candle. They don't mention anything about cursing a lack of candles.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)

“The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers' meeting
Or luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady;
So I was ready
When trouble came.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

Source: More Poems

Lovers

“He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Night

“Light is good company, when alone; I took my comfort where I found it, and the warmest yellow bulb in the living-room lamp had become a kind of radiant babysitter all its own.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

“You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Feeling, Thinking

“If you do not intend to help us," she said, "then leave this house. Dawn is coming."
"I am not a vampire." Magnus said. "I shall not disappear with the light"
"You will if I kill you before the sun comes up.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Sun, Help, Housing

“If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

Books, Chance

“Depression is boring, I think
and I would do better to make
some soup and light up the cave.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Thinking

“The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Love

“In The Right Light, At The Right Time. Everything Is Extraordinary.”

Aaron Rose (1969) American film director

Time

“They held each other and kissed and pushed each others' darkness into the corner, believing in each others' light, each others' dream.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

Dreams, Kiss

“Kahlan guide me. Kahlan teach me. Kahlan protect me. In your light I thrive. In your mercy I am sheltered. In your wisdom I am humbled. I live only to love you. My life is yours.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

Love, Life, Wisdom

“He told me about his monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

People

“Heart, we will forget him,

You and I, tonight!

You must forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Heart, Forgetting

“The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

Music

“The hardness of a diamond is part of its usefulness, but its true value is in the light that shines through it.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 27

Parting

“Warmth, perfume, rugs, soft lights, books. They do not appease me. I am aware of time passing, of all the world contains that I have not seen, of all the interesting people I have not met.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: A Cafe in Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal, Volume 3

People, Books, World, Time

“This, she realizes, is the basis of all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Fear

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1810s Source: Selected Writings Context: It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Letter to Isaac McPherson http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html (13 August 1813) ME 13:333. The sentence He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. is sometimes paraphrased as "Knowledge is like a candle. Even as it lights a new candle, the strength of the original flame is not diminished."

Idea

“I dreamed you were standing in this dark place and you touched these dead flowers and they lit up like they were electric or something. Electric lilies. Lighting up the Valley.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Girl Goddess #9: Nine Stories

Dreams, Flowers, Dead

“Ach, Tchekov! Why are you dead? Why can’t I talk to you in a big darkish room at late evening—where the light is green from the waving trees outside? I’d like to write a series of Heavens: that would be one.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Source: Journal of Katherine Mansfield

Tree, Dead

“We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Source: Nuestra America y Otros Escritos
Context: We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it. If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.

“Calvin: Dad where do babies come from?
Dad: Well Calvin, you simply go to Sears, buy the kit and follow the assembly instructions.
Calvin: I came from Sears?
Dad: No you were a blue-light special at K-Mart - almost as good and a lot cheaper!”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Baby

“Turn off the light," she says as she walks away, creating a smallthat smells sweet and chemical. It makes me sad because it's the smell she makes when she's leaving.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

Sadness

“If you're going into a very dark place, then you should take a bright light, and shine it on everything. If you don't want to see, why in God's name would you dare the dark at all?”

Stephen King book Full Dark, No Stars

Source: Full Dark, No Stars

God

“All the light of the day, fleeing the earth, seemed for one brief moment to take refuge in the sky; pink clouds spiralled round the full moon that was as green as pistachio sorbet and as clear as glass; it was reflected in the lake.”

Irène Némirovsky (1903–1942) French novelist who died at the age of 39 in Auschwitz

Source: Suite Française

“Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds. -Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (1867-1957)”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

Appearance, Personality

“Mary had a little lamb, its fleece electrostatic / And everywhere Mary went, the lights became erratic.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

“Living Memory
I carry you with me into the world,
into the smell of rain
& the words that dance between people
& for me, it will always be this way,
walking in the light,
remembering being alive together”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

People, World, Way, Memory

“For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

“Love must be as much a light as it is a flame.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Love, Cute, Wedding, love

“I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God, Peace, Thinking

“A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,—the light which, showing the way, forbids it.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Way

“I'm dark matter. The universe inside of me is full of something, and science can't even shine a light on it. I feel like I'm mostly made of mysteries.”

Maria Dahvana Headley (1977) American writer

Source: Magonia

Feeling, Universe, Science

“From Santi's earthly tomb with demon's hole,
'Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold.
The path of light is laid, the sacred test,
Let angels guide you on your lofty quest.”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

Angels

“Knowledge is love and light and vision.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Love, Knowledge

“The light of a new day always chases the shadows of the night away, and shows us that the shape of our fears is only the ghost of our own minds.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

Fear, Night

“Stuff that would be weird in the bright light of day just wasn't so much once you passed a certain hour.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Source: Mirror Mirror

“The night belongs to beasts of prey, and always has. It's easy to forget that when you're indoors, protected by light and solid walls.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Night, Forgetting

“That's how it is sometimes--
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you're just too tired to open it.”

Dorianne Laux (1952) American poet

Source: What We Carry

God

“Don't make light of any man's pain.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: When Demons Walk

Pain

“I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly, as the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Peace, Lying, Learning

“A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Variant: He was a Frenchman, a melancholy-looking man. His aspect was that of one who has been looking for the leak in a gas pipe with a lighted candle.
Source: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

Life, Search, Appearance, Depressing

“Who's to say that my light is better than your darkness? Who's to say death is better than your darkness? Who am I to say?”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Death

“I do not know anything about Art with a capital A. What I do know about is my art. Because it concerns me. I do not speak for others. So I do not speak for things which profess to speak for others. My art, however, speaks for me. It lights my way.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Art, Way

“Like most hearts, it was complicated, shaded with dark and dappled with light.”

Kate DiCamillo (1964) American children's writer

Heart

“You gotta be able to explain things to yourself when the lights go off and you get in the bed. You gotta deal with you at the end of the day.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

“Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Freedom

“It is not so much light that falls
over the world
extended by your body
its suffocating snow,
as brightness, pouring itself out of you,
as if you were
burning inside.

Under your skin the moon is alive.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: oda a la bella desnuda y otros escritos de amor

World

“My first memory is of light -- the brightness of light -- light all around.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Memory

“Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Nature

“Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

World, Travel, Housing

“There were a billion lights out there on the horizon and I knew that all of them put together weren't enough to light the darkness in the hearts of some men.”

Michael Connelly The Scarecrow

Source: The Scarecrow

Men, Heart

“There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

“It's about glowing lights and small things that are big.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

“What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, Liberty is to the soul of man. Without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Love, Death, Soul, Heart

“… dusk is the time when men whisper of matters about which they remain silent in the full light of the sun.”

Simon Raven (1927–2001) British writer

Men, Time, Sun

“I trust you all slept well,” I said, deliberately keeping my tone light. I returned Malich’s glare with a tight-lipped grin.

“Yes, we did,” Kaden answered quickly.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

“The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.”

Sinclair Lewis book Elmer Gantry

Source: Elmer Gantry (1927)

Star, Boy, Universe, Personality

“I shan't be lonely now. I was lonely; I was afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

Night

“Welcome home, Rachel mariana Morgan, he said, his goat-slitted eyes holding a new, dangerous light. It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Pale Demon

Pleasure, Home

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

Beauty, Time, Sun, Sea

“These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

“The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face, 19
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,—
And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!”

George Gordon Byron book The Bride of Abydos

Canto I, Stanza 6; this can be compared to: "The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love", Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy I. 3, line 16; also: "Oh, could you view the melody / Of every grace / And music of her face", Richard Lovelace, Orpheus to Beasts; "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix.
The Bride of Abydos (1813)

Love, Music, Soul, Heart

“The light had simply and utterly destroyed the darkness.”

Ted Dekker (1962) American writer

Source: Renegade

“Sometimes all it takes is a tiny shift of perspective to see something familiar in a totally new light.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

“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.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Madness

“We breathe the light, we breathe the music, we breathe the moment as it passes through us.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

Source: The Vampire Lestat

Music

“He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

Source: Girl With A Pearl Earring

Life, Beauty, Way

“The light made the snowballs look yellow. Or at least I hoped that was the cause.”

Gary D. Schmidt book The Wednesday Wars

Source: The Wednesday Wars

Hope

“He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

The Fountainhead (1943).
Source: Atlas Shrugged
Context: That particular sense of sacred rapture men say they experience in contemplating nature- I've never received it from nature, only from. Buildings, Skyscrapers. I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pest-hole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.

World

“When you call me close
to tell me
your body is not beautiful
I want to summon
the eyes and hidden mouths
of stone and light and water
to testify against you.”

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

Beauty, Water

“But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.”

Plutarch book Moralia

I, 4
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh
Context: For the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. And then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them.

Life, World, Soul, Time

“Every day you play with the light of the universe.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Universe