Quotes about light
page 49

“The fighting had ended and his old routines had begun to be re-established ‑ even El Morito had reappeared, skinny and flea-ridden - but nothing was as it had been. He was like someone who had stepped into a long, dark, and frightening tunnel and, coming into the light, could not blink away the darkness that continued to cloud the periphery of his vision. The world was a more arbitrary and crueler place, and even though his family surrounded him, he knew now that he was essentially alone in it.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: The Children of Eve' series of novels (historical fiction), The City of Palaces (2014), p.323

World, Family, Fight

“It was one of those winter days in Los Angeles when the wind has swept away the smog and the air is clear and the light still and everything has the immediacy of a dream. I parked on a street called Overland in the Hollywood Hills. It was lined with white-skinned birch trees. Their nude branches shimmered against the sky. Tattered yellow leaves clogged the gutters and the air was scented with the rainy smell of eucalyptus. There were no cars on the street and the houses were barely visible behind walls and fences and sweeping lawns that had never been trod upon except by gardeners.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Henry Rios series of novels, Goldenboy (1988), p.132

Dreams, Angels, Cars, Tree

“Purifying the soul is serious: the hereafter is ahead, the world is behind, death is near, the journey is far and the provisions are light.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

Death, World, Soul

“The tongue is very small and light but it can take you to the greatest heights and it can put you in the lowest depths.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

“When a woman is suspected by her own kinsmen or by neighboring Brahmans of having been guilty of light conduct, she is under pain of ox-communication of all her kinsmen, placed under restraint. The maid-servant (Dasi or Vrshali), who is indispensable to every Nambutiri family, if not to every individual female thereof, is then interrogated, and if she should eliminate her mistress, the latter is forthwith segregated and a watch set upon her. When the family can find a suitable house for the purpose, the sadhanam (the thing of article or subject, as the suspected person is called) is removed to it; otherwise she is kept in the family house, the other members finding temporary accommodation elsewhere.”

William Logan (author) book Malabar Manual

Malabar Manual, Page 122 https://archive.org/details/MalabarLogan/page/n134 Malabar Manual (1887)

Pain, Family, Communication, Housing

“What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you? Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner? The light of the sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light?”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life

Thinking, Sun, Country

“One light-year is not much as galactic distances go. You could walk it in about 270 million years, beginning at the middle of the Permian Era, when dinosaurs belonged to the remote future, and continuing to the present day.”

Poul Anderson book The Queen of Air and Darkness

The Queen of Air and Darkness (p. 43)
Short fiction, The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)

Future

“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.”

Plutarch book Moralia

I, 4
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh

Life, World, Soul, Time

“It has become ever clearer that underdevelopment is the end result of a process. Therefore, it must be studied from a historical perspective, that is, in relationship to the development and expansion of the great capitalist countries. The underdevelopment of the poor countries, as an overall social fact, appears in its true light: as the historical by-product of the development of other countries. The dynamics of the capitalist economy lead to the establishment of a center and a periphery, simultaneously generating progress and growing wealth for the few and social imbalances, political tensions, and poverty for the many.”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation (1971), p. 54

Study, Appearance, Country, Wealth

“It was deshbhakti which inspired Gandhi ji’s freedom struggle. It is deshbhakti which is powering the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. It is deshbhakti which is powering the movement to ensure smoke-free lives to women. It is deshbhakti which is powering the movement to give houses to all the poor in India. It is deshbhakti which is powering the movement to provide electricity to all homes. Deshbhakti is not a disease. Just as hyper-secularism was invented to strike at the root of India’s culture and ethos, similarly the terminology of hyper nationalism has been invented to portray deshbhakti in poor light.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2019, "2014 was a mandate for hope and aspiration, 2019 is about confidence and acceleration", 2019

Women, Disease, Home, Freedom

“Vasyl Slipak is a lighthouse of the Ukrainian nation. Through his spiritual light, he pointed to the whole path, the path of goodness, devotion, sacrifice, and patriotism. Although he was forcibly extinguished, Ukrainians should go further and not change the road.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

2017 Oleg Vyshniakov, consul Ukraine and Israel. Vasyl Slipak // Ukraine and Israel. Oleg Vyshniakov consul Ukraine and Israel — 2017. — December 20. http://ukraine-consul.blogspot.com/2017/12/vasyl-slipak.html

Change

“Most historians agree that historical Italian Fascism was a mixed bag of rightwing and left-wing socioeconomic policies. Nevertheless, recent evidence has shed new light on the underpinnings of Italian Fascism, discovering that this totalitarian state had embodied a far more collectivistic, socialist, and progressive ideology, placing it squarely on the left side of the political dichotomy, that is, only if Marxism is also considered to be on the Left.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), pp. 194-195

“In immediate self-consciousness the simple ego is absolute object, which, however, is for us or in itself absolute mediation, and has as its essential moment substantial and solid independence. The dissolution of that simple unity is the result of the first experience; through this there is posited a pure self-consciousness, and a consciousness which is not purely for itself, but for another, i. e. as an existent consciousness, consciousness in the form and shape of thinghood. Both moments are essential, since, in the first instance, they are unlike and opposed, and their reflexion into unity has not yet come to light, they stand as two opposed forms or modes of consciousness. The one is independent whose essential nature is to be for itself, the other is dependent whose essence is life or existence for another. The former is the Master, or Lord, the latter is the Bondsman.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book The Phenomenology of Spirit

The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)

Life, Nature, Dependency, Self-confidence

“A terrible commotion rages among them, the populace shouts and loudly weeps, when suddenly, before the cathedral door, appears the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor himself…. He pauses before the crowd and observes. He has seen all. He has witnessed the placing of the little coffin at His feet, the calling back to life. And now, his dark, grim face has grown still darker; his bushy grey eyebrows nearly meet, and his sunken eye flashes with sinister light. Slowly raising his finger, he commands his minions to arrest Him…”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Grand Inquisitor

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880), The Grand Inquisitor

Life, Appearance, Rage

“An honest fellow stripped of all his illusions is the ideal man. Though he may have little wit, his society is always pleasant. As nothing matters to him, he cannot be pedantic; yet is he tolerant, remembering that he too has had the illusions which still beguile his neighbor. He is trustworthy in his dealings, because of his indifference; he avoids all quarreling and scandal in his own person, and either forgets or passes over such gossip or bickering as may be directed against himself. He is more entertaining than other people because he is in a constant state of epigram against his neighbor. He dwells in truth, and smiles at the stumbling of others who grope in falsehood. He watches from a lighted place the ludicrous antics of those who walk in a dim room at random. Laughing, he breaks the false weight and measure of men and things.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

L'honnête homme, détrompé de toutes les illusions, est l'homme par excellence. Pour peu qu'il ait d'esprit, sa société est très aimable. Il ne saurait être pédant, ne mettant d'importance à rien. Il est indulgent, parce qu'il se souvient qu'il a eu des illusions, comme ceux qui en sont encore occupés. C'est un effet de son insouciance d'être sûr dans le commerce, de ne se permettre ni redites, ni tracasseries. Si on se les permet à son égard, il les oublie ou les dédaigne. Il doit être plus gai qu'un autre, parce qu'il est constamment en état d'épigramme contre son prochain. Il est dans le vrai et rit des faux pas de ceux qui marchent à tâtons dans le faux. C'est un homme qui, d'un endroit éclairé, voit dans une chambre obscure les gestes ridicules de ceux qui s'y promènent au hasard. Il brise, en riant, les faux poids et les fausses mesures qu'on applique aux hommes et aux choses.
Maximes et Pensées, #339
Maxims and Considerations, #339

Men, People, Truth, Smile

“The Divine Existence (Daseyn),—his Existence, I say, which, according to the distinction already laid down, is his (Manifestation and Revelation of himself—is absolute- only through itself, and of necessity, LIGHT:—namely, y the inward and spiritual Light. This Light, left to itself, separates and divides itself into an infinite multiplicity of individual rays; and in this way, in these individual rays, becomes estranged from itself and its | original source. But this same Light may also again concentrate itself from out this separation, and conceive and comprehend itself as One, as that which it is in itself,-the Existence and Revelation of God; remaining indeed, even in this conception, that which it is in its form,-Light; but yet in this condition, and even by means of this very condition, announcing it-to self as having no real Being in itself, but as only the, Existence and Self-Manifestation of God.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Way Towards The Blessed Life or the Doctrine of Religion 1806, p. 78

God, Way, Self-confidence

“This atmosphere of the Spirit-World, this creating and combining element, is Light—this originally: Warmth, if it do not again exhale, but bear within itself an element of duration, is but the first manifestation of this Light. In the Darkness of mere earthly vision, all things stand divided from each other; each individual thing isolated by means of the cold and unillumined Matter in which it is embraced. But in this Darkness there is no Unity. The Light of Religion arises!—and all things burst forth and rush towards each other in reciprocal order and dependence, and float on together, as a united Whole, in the One, Eternal, and All-embracing flood of Light. This Light is mild, silent, refreshing and wholesome to the eye. In the Twilight of mere Earthly vision the dim shapes which crowd in confusion around us are feared, and therefore hated. In the Light of Religion all things are pleasing, and shed around them calmness and peace. In it all unlovely shapes disappear, and all things float in the glowing Ether of Love.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 268

Love, Hate, World, Fear

“True Religion does not manifest itself outwardly, and impels man to no course of external conduct which he would not otherwise have adopted, but that it only completes his true In ward Being and Dignity. It is neither an Action, nor an incentive to Action, but a Thought:—it is LIGHT, and the One True Light, which bears within it all Life and all the forms of Life, and pervades their innermost substance. Once arisen, this Light flows on spontaneously forever, spreading itself forth without term or limit;-and it is as idle to bid it shine, as it would be to address such a command to the material sun when it stands in the noon-day heavens. It does this without our bidding; and if it shine not, then has it not arisen. At its uprising, Darkness, and the brood of spectres and phantasms which are born of Darkness, vanish of themselves.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 264

Life, Religion, Sun

“The Doctrine of a Perfect God; in whose nature nothing arbitrary or changeable can have a place; in whose Highest Being we all live, and in this Life may, and ought at all times to be, blessed;—this Doctrine, which ignorant men think they have sufficiently demolished when they have proclaimed it to be Mysticism, is by no means Mysticism, for it has an immediate reference to human action, and in deed to the inmost spirit which ought to inspire and guide all our actions. It can only become Mysticism when it is associated with the pretext that the insight into this truth proceeds from a certain inward and mysterious light, which is not accessible to all men, but is only bestowed upon a few favourites chosen from among the rest:—in which pretext the Mysticism consists, for it betrays a presumptuous contemplation of personal merit, and a pride in mere sensuous Individuality.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

p, 122-123
The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806)

Life, Men, God, Truth

“Should it seem to me that truth has been put to silence, and virtue trampled under foot, and that folly and vice will certainly triumph; should it happen, when all hearts were filled with hope for the human race, that the horizon should suddenly darken around them as it had never done before; should the work, well and happily begun, on which all eyes were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and unexpectedly be turned into a deed of shame, — yet will I not be dismayed; nor if the good cause should appear to grow and flourish, the lights of freedom and civilization be diffused, and peace and good-will amongst men be extended, shall yet my efforts be relaxed.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.123
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

Men, Truth, Peace, Hope

“For those who take the vegetarian option seriously and adopt it as their own, it may well connect with their spiritual or religious orientation, even their sense of meaning and purpose in life. Some might see these as grandiose claims, but the point is that vegetarianism sheds light upon, and is in turn reflected by, our philosophical outlook on ourselves, our world, and our place in it.”

Michael Allen Fox (1940)

Source: Deep Vegetarianism (1999), p. 181

Life, World, Sense

“I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as females with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things in life but sentimental love feelings. After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet understand how to be free. The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, militants and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love? We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force. But over and over again things turned out differently, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again alone, unhappy, lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal …work. Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur.”

Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) Soviet diplomat

The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

Love, Life, Women, Men

“My Instrument being fixed, I immediately began to observe such Stars as I judged most proper to give me light into the Cause of the Motion… There was Variety enough of small ones; and not less than twelve, that I could observe through all the Seasons of the Year; they being bright enough to be seen in the Day-time, when nearest the Sun. I had not been long observing, before I perceived, that the Notion we had before entertained of the Stars being farthest North and South, when the Sun was about the Equinoxes, was only true of those that were near the solstitial Colure: And after I had continued my Observations a few Months, I discovered what I then apprehended to be a general Law, observed by all the Stars, viz.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

That each of them became stationary, or was farthest North or South, when they passed over my Zenith at six of the Clock, either in the Morning or Evening. I perceived likewise, that whatever Situation the Stars were in with respect to the cardinal Points of the Ecliptick, the apparent Motion of every one tended the same Way, when they passed my Instrument about the same Hour of the Day or Night; for they all moved Southward, while they passed in the Day, and Northward in the Night; so that each was farthest North, when it came about Six of the Clock in the Evening, and farthest South when it came about Six in the Morning. A Letter from the Reverend Mr. James Bradley Savilian Proffesor of Astronomy at Oxford, and F.R.S. to Dr. Edmund Halley, Astronom. Reg. &c. giving an Account of a New Discovered Motion of the Fix'd Stars. Philosophical Transactions (Jan 1, 1727) 1727-1728 No. 406. vol. XXXV. pp. 637-661 http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/35/399-406/637.full.pdf+html.

Law, Star, Time, Sun

“Barron, Bishop Robert. To Light a Fire on the Earth: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age (p. 78). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.”

Robert Barron (bishop) (1959) priest of the Roman Catholic Church, author, scholar and Catholic evangelist.

Age

“Another interesting feature of the Einstein universe is that in principle it could be circumnavigated by a ray of light… it is unlikely that the rays would converge with sufficient accuracy. Nevertheless it is interesting to consider the possibility that some of the stars and nebulae which we see may after all be only optical ghosts.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Star, Universe

“Here I need not go into the paradoxes and mysteries of Kabbalistic theology concerned with the seflroth and their nature. But one important point must be made. The process which the Kabbalists described as the emanation of divine energy and divine light was also characterized as the unfolding of the divine language.”

Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) German-born Israeli philosopher and historian

This gives rise to a deep-seated parallelism between the two most important kinds of symbolism used by the Kabbalists to communicate their ideas. They speak of attributes and of spheres of light; but in the same context they speak also of divine names and the letters of which they are composed. From the very beginnings of Kabbalistic doctrine these two manners of speaking appear side by side. The secret world of the godhead is a world of language, a world of divine names that unfold in accordance with a law of their own. The elements of the divine language appear as the letters of the Holy Scriptures. Letters and names are not only conventional means of communication. They are far more. Each one of them represents a concentration of energy and expresses a wealth of meaning which cannot be translated, or not fully at least, into human language. There is, of course, an obvious discrepancy between the two symbolisms. When the Kabbalists speak of divine attributes and sefiroth, they are describing the hidden world under ten aspects; when, on the other hand, they speak of divine names and letters, they necessarily operate' with the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet, in which the Torah is written, or as they would have said, in which its secret essence was made communicable.
Source: On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (1960), Ch. 2 : The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism

Nature

“His idea may not solve the mystery of faster-than-light neutrinos, and it may not even shed much light on it – the details of the analysis might be wrong, or be filled with old-fashioned ideas. But I thought it was fascinating that a 50-year-old New Scientist story touched on a topic that is all over the headlines today.”

Jayant Narlikar (1938) Indian physicist

Michael Brooks in: "Neutrino misbehaviour suggested 50 years ago"

Idea, Fashion

“He had constituted the Kurukshetra Development Board which set up Panorama and Museum and Light programme depicting the history of Mahabharata. By setting up a library and a museum, the people visiting this holy pilgrimage would get a glimpse of the life of the great leader…”

Gulzarilal Nanda (1898–1998) Prime Minister of India

A.R. Kidwai in:"Prime Minister of India Acting".

Life, People, History

“With all awards and accolades at the international level and his outstanding contribution to classical music, his appeal was not restricted to purists or the elite connoisseur. He endeared himself to the public at large by his tasteful rendering of light music and film songs.”

M. Balamuralikrishna (1930–2016) Carnatic vocalist, instrumentalist and playback singer

Jayalalithaa in: Balamuralikrishna deserves Bharat Ratna: Jayalalithaa http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/26/stories/2005072617030500.htm, Thee Hindu, 26 Jul y 2005.

Music

“Tulsidas was a poor recluse who lived an ascetic life and prompted by an inner light, adapted an old epic in folk-verse which broke all barriers and spread far and wide.”

Tulsidas (1532–1623) Hindu poet-saint

Shiva Kumar Tripathi in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", p. 36

Life

“The Congress movement was for a long time purely occidental in its mind, character and methods, confined to the English-educated few, founded on the political rights and interests of the people read in the light of English history and European ideals, but with no roots either in the past of the country or in the inner spirit of the nation…. To bring in the mass of the people, to found the greatness of the future on the greatness of the past, to infuse Indian politics with Indian religious fervour and spirituality are the indispensable conditions for a great and powerful political awakening in India. Others, writers, thinkers, spiritual leaders, had seen this truth. Mr. Tilak was the first to bring it into the actual field of practical politics….. There are always two classes of political mind: one is preoccupied with details for their own sake, revels in the petty points of the moment and puts away into the background the great principles and the great necessities, the other sees rather these first and always and details only in relation to them. The one type moves in a routine circle which may or may not have an issue; it cannot see the forest for the trees and it is only by an accident that it stumbles, if at all, on the way out. The other type takes a mountain-top view of the goal and all the directions and keeps that in its mental compass through all the deflections, retardations and tortuosities which the character of the intervening country may compel it to accept; but these it abridges as much as possible. The former class arrogate the name of statesman in their own day; it is to the latter that posterity concedes it and sees in them the true leaders of great movements. Mr. Tilak, like all men of pre-eminent political genius, belongs to this second and greater order of mind.”

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) Indian independence activist

Sri Aurobindo, (From an introduction to a book entitled Speeches and Writings of Tilak.), quoted from Sri Aurobindo, ., Nahar, S., Aurobindo, ., & Institut de recherches évolutives (Paris). India's rebirth: A selection from Sri Aurobindo's writing, talks and speeches. Paris: Institut de Recherches Evolutives. 3rd Edition (2000). https://web.archive.org/web/20170826004028/http://bharatvani.org/books/ir/IR_frontpage.htm

Men, People, Truth, Education

“I have had such close opportunities of watching and for whom I entertain so sincere a regard as the young Maharaja of Mysore. Indeed, I think I may add that I should not have come all the way from Simla at this season of the year had I not felt the keenest personal interest both in this State and in its future Ruler. About the latter I shall have a word to say presently. But first let me explain how it is that the fortunes of the Mysore State occupy such a place in the concern and regard of the Government of India…. The young Maharaja whom I am about to instal has recently attained his eighteenth birthday. He has passed through a minority of nearly eight years. They have not been idle or vapid years spent in enjoyment or dissipated in idleness. They have been years of careful preparation for the duties that lie before him and of laborious training for his exalted state. It is no light thing to assume the charge of 5,000,000 of people and it is no perfunctory training that is required for such a task.”

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) King of Mysore

Viceroy Lord Curzon in his investiture speech installing him as the Maharaja of Mysore stated in a Durbar held on 8 August 1902. Modern_Mysore, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, 26 November 2013, archive.org, 187 http://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp/modernmysore035292mbp_djvu.txt, From Modern Mysore

People, Lie, Way, Birthday

“Dr. C. V. Raman was the greatest scientist of modern India and one of the greatest intellects our country has produced in its long history. His mind was like the diamond, which he studied and explained. His life’s work consisted in throwing light upon the nature of lights, and the world honoured him in many ways for the new knowledge which he won for science.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India quoted in [Cahn, R.W., The Coming of Materials Science, http://books.google.com/books?id=CCmJMr_K5NIC&pg=PA234, 16 March 2001, Elsevier, 978-0-08-052942-4, 272]

Life, World, Way, History

“Harvey was not especially introspective, but this didn’t mean he was stupid. He was moral, within his lights; he understood the value of subtlety even if he wasn’t much for it himself, and one of the reasons he could get away with being loud and obnoxious was that he was a fair stick at strategy and logistics. Give him a job and he’d do it, usually in the most entropy-producing way possible, yes, but also in a way that achieved exactly the aim it was supposed to. One of Harvey’s guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down. When asked about it, Harvey called it his Occam’s razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone’s ass was usually the correct one.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 14 (p. 315)

Stupidity, Way

“How many Microsoft employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

Guy Kawasaki (1954) American businessman and author

The answer to that is none because Bill Gates has declared darkness the new standard. Speech at Stanford University 2 March 2011 http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2669

“How many Macintosh division employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

Guy Kawasaki (1954) American businessman and author

The answer is one. The Macintosh division employee holds up the light bulb and expects the universe to revolve around it. Speech at Stanford University 2 March 2011 http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2669

“His thinking threw light in a very introspective way on the entire process of the judicial function. His decisions, beyond just the vote they represented, were sufficiently philosophical to be of enduring interest. He decided the case before him with that respect for its particulars, its special features, that marks alike the honest artist and the just judge.”

John Marshall Harlan II (1899–1971) American judge and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1899-1971)

Paul Freund, The Judges' Judge http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877560,00.html, Time Magazine (June 10, 1972). About Harlan

Way, Thinking, Decision

“This consideration must alter the form of our proposed inquiry; for the question being thus at least partly decided, since it is ascertained that we have rays of heat which give no light, it can only become a subject of inquiry whether some of these heat-making rays may not have a power of rendering objects visible, superadded to their now already established power of heating bodies.”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

This being the case, it is evident that the onus probandi [burden of proof] ought to lie with those who are willing to establish such an hypothesis, for it does not appear that Nature is in the habit of using one and the same mechanism with any two of our senses. Witness the vibration of air that makes sound, the effluvia that occasion smells, the particles that produce taste, the resistance or repulsive powers that affect the touch—all these are evidently suited to their respective organs of sense.
Source: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works" on his discovery of the infrared.

Making love, Question

“The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom-loving citizens who criticize Islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between Islam and crime or honour killing, must suffer and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger. The lights are going out all over Europe. Everywhere the Orwellian thought police are at work, on the lookout for thought crimes everywhere, casting the populace back within the confines where it is allowed to think.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pfEJaI2iS4 (7 February 2011) 2010s

Love, Truth, Making love, Thinking

“I’ve been travelling a lot. My boyfriend and I, we just went to Santa Fe. You know, the one named after the gay saint. Has anybody ever been to Santa Fe? …did you know it was a desert? I didn’t know it was a desert. Hated it! People had been telling me for years, if you’re an artist, a non-conformist, come to Santa Fe! I mean, it’s the place you can be yourself! The light, the light, you can paint here! You can live here, the space, the sky! – The fucking dust! I was doing an AIDS benefit there – like what else do I do with my life?”

Harvey Fierstein (1954) actor from the United States

and I said, look, I’m a guest here, you’re paying for the hotel, I don’t mean to insult nobody, but I got a little suggestion for you. If I was yaz, I’d take a hose, hook it up to Colorado, and water this fucking place!
This Is Not Going to Be Pretty, Live at the Bottom Line (1995)

Life, Hate, People, Travel

“The gladsome light of jurisprudence.”

Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge

The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, or, A Commentary on Littleton, (London, 1628, ed. F. Hargrave and C. Butler, 19th ed., London, 1832), First Institute.
Institutes of the Laws of England

“If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Michael Scheuer, Steven Emerson, and yes, even the crusader-in-chief George W. Bush were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam. And we send a special invitation to all of you fighting Bush’s crusader pipe dream in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever else W. has sent you to die.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

Adam Gadahn My Invitation From al-Qaeda http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=2739

God, Hate, Dreams, Fight

“As we twirled and snapped our fingers, I felt light and airy and fancy-free. Of course I did, I had no bloody panties on!”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

And the cartwheel lift's coming up! And I'm a brunette!
Tracey Ullman: Live and Exposed (2005)

“Looked at from the perspective of twentieth-century earth, we see three great stages in the dynamic process of the universe. To this whole process, as it spreads out over perhaps ten billion years of time and ten billion light years of space, we give the name evolution, and we see three great patterns within it. The first is physical evolution.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

This presumably started with the development of the most elementary particles (whatever they may be); then of neutrons, protons, electrons, and radiations; then of elements from hydrogen to uranium and beyond formed by combining protons and electrons; then of chemical compounds; then finally of increasingly complex molecules from amino acids, and proteins to the great watershed of DNA, the beginnings of life.
Source: 1970s, Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution, 1978, p. 28

Universe, Time

“My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me that the lamp which I carry does not belong to me, and the song that I sing was not generated from within me. Even if I walk with light, I am not the light; and if I am a taut-stringed lute, I am not the lute player.”

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

The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (1994)

Soul, Singing

“Thus I am bounden to keep it in my faith. For on the same day that it was shewed, what time that the Sight was passed, as a wretch I forsook it, and openly I said that I had raved. Then our Lord Jesus of His mercy would not let it perish, but He showed it all again within in my soul with more fulness, with the blessed light of His precious love: saying these words full mightily and full meekly: Wit it now well: it was no raving that thou sawest this day. As if He had said: For that the Sight was passed from thee, thou losedst it and hadst not skill to keep it. But wit it now; that is to say, now that thou seest it.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

This was said not only for that same time, but also to set thereupon the ground of my faith when He saith anon following: But take it, believe it, and keep thee therein and comfort thee therewith and trust thou thereto; and thou shalt not be overcome.
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 70

Love, Making love, Faith, Soul

“The poetical character… is not itself — it has no self — it is every thing and nothing — It has no character — it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it fair or foul, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated.”

John Keats Letter to Richard Woodhouse

It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philospher, delights the camelion poet.
Letter to Richard Woodhouse (October 27, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

Self-confidence

“You made the born noble yours, welcoming him as what he was, the Sent of Heaven: you did not force him either to die or become your enemy; idly neglecting or suppressing him as what he was not, a thing of no worth. You accepted the blessed light; and in the shape of infernal lightning it needed not to visit you. How, like an immense mine-shaft through the dim oppressed strata of society, this Institution of the Priesthood ran; opening, from the lowest depths towards all heights and towards Heaven itself, a free road of egress and emergence towards virtuous nobleness, heroism and well-doing, for every born man.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

“One Jewish quality these Arabs manifest; the outcome of many or of all high qualities: what we may call religiosity. From of old they had been zealous worshippers, according to their light. They worshipped the stars, as Sabeans; worshipped many natural objects,—recognized them as symbols, immediate manifestations, of the Maker of Nature. It was wrong; and yet not wholly wrong.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Star, Nature

“Humor is properly the exponent of low things; that which first renders them poetical to the mind. The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius. He who wants it, be his other gifts what they may, has only half a mind; an eye for what is above him, not for what is about him or below him. Now, among all writers of any real poetic genius, we cannot recollect one who, in this respect, exhibits such total deficiency as Schiller. In his whole writings there is scarcely any vestige of it, scarcely any attempt that way. His nature was without Humor; and he had too true a feeling to adopt any counterfeit in its stead. Thus no drollery or caricature, still less any barren mockery, which, in the hundred cases are all that we find passing current as Humor, discover themselves in Schiller. His works are full of labored earnestness; he is the gravest of all writers.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)

Love, Life, Making love, Way

“The strength of the doctrine of reincarnation lies in itself, in its appeal to our intellectual and logical faculties, in its own persuasiveness, in the manner in which it answers problems, in the hope that it gives, in the light that it sheds upon collateral questions of human life, and indirectly upon the problems of the physical world surrounding us. It is through and by reincarnation as a natural fact, that we learn the beauty of the inner life and thereby grow, developing a larger comprehension, not only of ourselves, but of the loveliness inherent in the harmony of the universal laws. For there is back of all things beauty, and bliss, and truth.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 10

Life, Truth, World, Law

“The first step, then, is the most important: to realize you have a remarkable social tool that you are not cultivating. The best way to see this is to try it out. Stop your incessant interior monologue and pay deeper attention to people. Attune yourself to the shifting moods of individuals and the group. Get a read on each person’s particular psychology and what motivates them. Try to take their perspective, enter their world and value system. You will suddenly become aware of an entire world of nonverbal behavior you never knew existed, as if your eyes could now suddenly see ultraviolet light. Once you sense this power, you will feel its importance and awaken to new social possibilities.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 2 : Transform Self-love into Empathy
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People, World, Way, Behavior

“People tend to wear the mask that shows them off in the best possible light—humble, confident, diligent. They say the right things, smile, and seem interested in our ideas. They learn to conceal their insecurities and envy. If we take this appearance for reality, we never really know their true feelings, and on occasion we are blindsided by their sudden resistance, hostility, and manipulative actions. Fortunately, the mask has cracks in it. People continually leak out their true feelings and unconscious desires in the nonverbal cues they cannot completely control—facial expressions, vocal inflections, tension in the body, and nervous gestures. You must master this language by transforming yourself into a superior reader of men and women. Armed with this knowledge, you can take the proper defensive measures. On the other hand, since appearances are what people judge you by, you must learn how to present the best front and play your role to maximum effect.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Women, Men, Hostility, People

“The way I like to describe shadow work is like this - When we're first doing spiritual practice we're moving out of dark spaces into the light of consciousness. And then, our job is to take the light of consciousness back into the shadows and shine it there so that then they become the light of consciousness as well.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Way

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade

Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
St. 2
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)

“For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Women, Fear, Dreams, Hope

“There is no middle way in this war. We do not doubt our ultimate victory any more than we doubt the justice of our cause.It is not conceivable that we should fail, for if we fail the lights of freedom go out over the whole world. They may glimmer for a little in the western hemisphere,but a Germany dominating half the world by sea and land will most certainly extinguish them in every quarter where they have hitherto shone upon mankind, so that even the traditions of freedom will pass out of remembrance. If we do our duty we shall not fail.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

War, World, Justice, Way

“I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

2000s, Address at Stanford University (2005)

Life, Success

“Secrecy is the potting soil in which all this conspiracy shit grows. Trust me. The roaches don’t like it when you start shining a light on them.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 13 (p. 140)

“Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer, either by its own nature, or by accidental heat. And it is not to be thought that light bodies are escaping to the surface of the universe while they are carried upwards, or that they are not attracted by the earth. They are attracted, but in a less degree, and so are driven outwards by the heavy bodies; which being done, they stop, and are kept by the earth in their own place.”

Johannes Kepler book Mysterium Cosmographicum

As translated and quoted by Bryant, ibid.
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), Astronomia nova (1609)

Nature, Universe

“Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory. Before the disciples must descend with Jesus into the abyss of human guilt, malice, and hatred, Jesus leads them to a high mountain from which they are to receive help. Before Jesus' face is beaten and spat upon, before his cloak is torn and splattered with blood, the disciples are to see Him in his divine glory. His face shines like the face of God and light is the garment he wears.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Back to the Cross, p. 3

God, Mountain, Suffering, Help

“One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found — and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

From Nothing Personal, a collaboration with the photographer Richard Avedon (1964). Baldwin's text for the volume can be found " here https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=cibs".

Life, Children, Faith, Lovers

“Concern with this world is darkness in the heart, but concern with the Hereafter is light in the heart.”

Uthman (574–656) Companion of Muhammad and third Rashidun Caliph

Al-Isti'ad li Yawm al-Mia'd, p. 9

World, Heart

“God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Costly Grace (1937), p. 49

Life, God, World, Dogs

“You know I believe we all begin equal parts light and dark. I fear you think your strength lies in your darkness. But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.”

Pierce Brown book Dark Age

Source: Dark Age (2019), Ch. 35: Endure; Virginia, in a recorded message to Darrow

Fear, Hope, Thinking, Parting

“Do not think much of me, please. Think kindly of me; but oh, my friend, direct your thoughts to the Eternal Truth. I am, like you, struggling on the road. Perhaps a veil might in an instant fall down from your spirit, and you would be long ahead of us all. The reason you have had help is that in other lives you gave it to others. In every effort you made to lighten another mind and open it to Truth, you were helped yourself. Those pearls you found for another and gave to him, you really retained for yourself in the act of benevolence. For when one lives thus to help others, he is thereby putting in practice the rule to try and "kill out all sense of separateness," and thus gets little by little in possession of the true light.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Vol. I, Letter 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

Truth, Thinking, Sense, Effort

“Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace, and wit, reminders of order, calm, and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep, and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still, and absorbed.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

"Still in Melbourne, January 1987", as quoted in [Fred R Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations, https://books.google.com/books?id=ck6bXqt5shkC, 2006, Yale University Press, 0-300-10798-6, 324]
Daddy, We Hardly Knew You (1989)

Pleasure, World, Home

“Is it possible to be a healthy vegetarian or vegan? I became vegan, let’s see, 32 years ago now. And, I run several miles every day, I go biking 40, 50 miles through the countryside, I work long hours, I feel great, it’s nice waking up with a light, trim body every day. And so many of my vegan friends, and patients, you know, are thriving, ever since their transition to a vegan diet. So, yes, and I’ve seen vegan moms go through healthy vegan pregnancies, deliver healthy vegan children, and raise them to tall, full-size, intelligent vegan adults. And, yes, certainly, all the nutrients are there in the plant kingdom to do this.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

Interview in the documentary-film Cowspiracy by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn (2014).

Children, Feeling, Intelligence, Moms

“At that, I understood for sure I must not lose her, for the earth is not the earth without some light to see it by, and she was mine.”

Tanith Lee book Quest for the White Witch

Book Two, Part III “The Sorceress”, Chapter 3 (p. 316)
Quest for the White Witch (1978)

“But the mighty computer is stupid. Thinking with the speed of light but unable to cross the gaps of intuition.”

Robert Silverberg book The World Inside

Source: The World Inside (1971), Chapter 7 (p. 483)

Stupidity, Thinking, Speed

“If I needed you, would you come to me?
Would you come to me and ease my pain?
If you needed me, I would come to you
I'd swim the seas for to ease your pain
Well, in the night forlorn, oh, the morning's born
And the morning shines with the lights of love
And you will miss sunrise if you close your eyes
And that would break my heart in twoThe lady's with me now since I showed her how
To lay her lily hand in mine
Loop and Lil agree, she's a sight to see
A treasure for the poor to find”

Townes Van Zandt (1944–1997) singer-songwriter

If I Needed You (1972)

Love, Pain, Making love, Heart

“There is... always, in a large population like that of France, a class which is ignorant, which suffers, covets, and struggles, placed between the brutish instinct which impels it to take, and the moral law which invites it to labour. In the grievous and oppressed condition in which it still is, this class, in order to maintain itself in probity and well-doing, requires all the pure and holy light that emanates from the Gospel; it requires that, on the one hand, the spirit of Jesus Christ, and, on the other, the spirit of the French Revolution, should address to it the same manly words, and should never cease to point out to it, as the only lights worthy of the eyes of man, the exalted and mysterious laws of human destiny,—self-denial, devotion, sacrifice, the labour which leads to material well-being, the probity which leads to inward well-being; even with this perennial instruction, at once divine and human, this class, so worthy of sympathy and fraternity, often succumbs.”

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

Napoleon the Little (1852), Conclusion, Part First, III
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Law, Suffering, Christ, Self-confidence

“Now it is all over. The great work is accomplished. And the results of the work!... Get all you can, gorge yourselves, grow a fat paunch; it is no longer a question of being a great people, of being a powerful people, of being a free nation, of casting a bright light; France no longer sees its way to that.”

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

Napoleon the Little (1852), Book V, IX
Napoleon the Little (1852)

People, Way, Question

“Although I am unacquainted with astrological lore, I was drawn to the symbolic power of the pervasive dream in our popular culture: that after a dark, violent age, the Piscean, we are entering a millennium of love and light—in the words of the popular song, "The Age of Aquarius," the time of "the mind's true liberation."”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Introduction

Love, Age, Making love, Dreams

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”

Richard Dawkins book Unweaving the Rainbow

Source: Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), Ch. 1 : The Anaesthetic of Familiarity; Dawkins is reported to have stated that this passage will be read at his funeral; it is often quoted with an extension which does not occur in any thus-far-checked editions of the book: "We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

People, Making love