"Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour"
Collected Poems (1954)
Context: We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)
“To see a candle’s light, one must take it into a dark place.”
Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 9, "Orm Embar" (Sparrowhawk)
1960, The New Frontier
Context: But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high — to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future. Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do. [... ] It is a time, in short, for a new generation of leadership — new men to cope with new problems and new opportunities.
“It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”
Variant: Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.
Source: This is My Story
“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
“Carry a candle in the dark, be a candle in the dark, know that you're a flame in the dark.”
