“Speech perpetuates vision. We carry no light; we are things of shadow, for night closes our eyes, and we put out our hands to find our way when the light is gone; we only shine in speech; truth is made by the mouths of men. The wind of words — what is it? It is our breath — not all words, for there are artificial and copied ones which are not part of the speaker; but the profound words, the cries. In the human cry you feel the effort of the spring. The cry comes out of us, it is as living as a child. The cry goes on, and makes the appeal of truth wherever it may be, the cry gathers cries.”

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light

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Henri Barbusse197

French novelist 1873–1935

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I believe that the only thing which confronts the heart and the reason is the shadow of that which the heart and the reason cry for. I believe that around us there is only one word, the immense word which takes us out of our solitude, NOTHING. I believe that this does not signify our nothingness or our misfortune, but, on the contrary, our realisation and our deification, since everything is within us.

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Variant: Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.

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Who knows what time will not tell us?”

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The key word for our time is practice. We have all the light we need, we just need to put it into practice.