“Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths.”
Festus (1839)
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Philip James Bailey19
British writer and poet 1816–1902Related quotes
“At the same time welcome Night brings on the star-heralding shadows.”
Nox simul astriferas profert optabilis umbras.
Gaius Valerius Flaccus book Argonautica
Source: Argonautica, Book VI, Line 752
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
Part 2, Book 1, Ch. 2
Variant translation: What makes night within us may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three (1874)
Context: Cimourdain was a pure-minded but gloomy man. He had "the absolute" within him. He had been a priest, which is a solemn thing. Man may have, like the sky, a dark and impenetrable serenity; that something should have caused night to fall in his soul is all that is required. Priesthood had been the cause of night within Cimourdain. Once a priest, always a priest.
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.
“As night the life-inclining stars best shows,
So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator
Epilogue to Translations; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“What makes night within us may leave stars.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
Variant: Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three
“The stars are a free show; it don’t cost anything to use your eyes”
George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London
Source: Down and Out in Paris and London
“Night is an ally of sorrowful people.”
Ivo Kozarčanin (1911–1941) Croatian writer
quoted in Group of Authors: Velika knjiga aforizama, Prosvjeta-Globus, Vol. IV, 1984