Quotes about candle

A collection of quotes on the topic of candle, light, lighting, likeness.

Quotes about candle

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

World, Light

“What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Hurtful

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Context: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

People, Star, Time, Madness

“We're reaching for death
on the end of a candle
We're trying for something
that's already found us”

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

Death

“Hindustan is a country which has few pleasures to recommend it…. Indians have no idea of the charms of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse…. They have no horses, no good grapes, or musk melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no bath or colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candle stick”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

First Mughal emperor Babur wrote in his autobiography Tuzk-e-Babri

Pleasure, Food, Idea, Water

“It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Variant: Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.
Source: This is My Story

Light

“Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and innocent vanities, and irony itself-- do these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him?”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Life, Fish, Light, Sun

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Knowledge, Light

“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay book A Few Figs from Thistles

Misattributed
Source: Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.

Love, Light, Night

“Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in O2 : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in The White Rose (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
Disputed
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

Life, Death, Way

“There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Light, Time

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

As quoted in 7 Laws of Human Nature: The Oneness of Universal Love (2017) by Conrad Spainhower and other self-help books and quotation sites.
Disputed

Hope

“Now I see that I will never find the light
Unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel,
Consuming myself.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Light

“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”

Stephen King book 'Salem's Lot

Variant: Alone. Yes, that’s the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym…
Source: 'Salem's Lot

Hell

“Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.”

Emile Zola book Germinal

Source: Germinal

“She tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

“Then, with an enormous rush of meadow-filled wind, the green candle went out, and my best friend died.”

Kristin Cast book Betrayed

Source: Betrayed

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

World

“Out, out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Variant: Life... is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Source: Macbeth

Life

“A million candles burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Light

“Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth, Act V, scene v.
Context: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Life

“Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

“What is magic?
There is the wizard's explanation… wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Star

“With trembling hands, I made a tiny breach in the upper left hand corner… widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in… at first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle to flicker. Presently, details of the room emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold – everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment – an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by – I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand in suspense any longer, inquired anxiously "Can you see anything?", it was all I could do to get out the words "Yes, wonderful things".”

Howard Carter (1874–1939) British egyptologist

Tutankhamen and the Glint of Gold http://www.fathom.com/feature/190166/index.html Diary, 26 November 1922.

Animals

“"Our Second Experiment", the Professor announced, as Bruno returned to his place, still thoughtfully rubbing his elbows, "is the production of that seldom-seen-but-greatly-to-be-admired phenomenon, Black Light! You have seen White Light, Red Light, Green Light, and so on: but never, till this wonderful day, have any eyes but mine seen Black Light! This box", carefully lifting it upon the table, and covering it with a heap of blankets, "is quite full of it. The way I made it was this - I took a lighted candle into a dark cupboard and shut the door. Of course the cupboard was then full of Yellow Light. Then I took a bottle of Black ink, and poured it over the candle: and, to my delight, every atom of the Yellow Light turned Black! That was indeed the proudest moment of my life! Then I filled a box with it. And now - would anyone like to get under the blankets and see it?"Dead silence followed this appeal: but at last Bruno said "I'll get under, if it won't jingle my elbows."Satisfied on this point, Bruno crawled under the blankets, and, after a minute or two, crawled out again, very hot and dusty, and with his hair in the wildest confusion."What did you see in the box?" Sylvie eagerly enquired."I saw nuffin!" Bruno sadly replied. "It were too dark!""He has described the appearance of the thing exactly!"”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Black Light, and Nothing, look so extremely alike, at first sight, that I don't wonder he failed to distinguish them! We will now proceed to the Third Experiment."
Source: Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), Chapter 21: The Professor's Lecture

Life, Way, Light, Silence

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love, Men, God, Children

“I like to stump Google. The other day I Google'd "how many Mexicans live in North Korea"…. Google didn't know. I also Google'd "how many candles does Dave Navarro own?"…14,000.”

Zach Galifianakis (1969) American actor and comedian

Saturday Night Live (May 4, 2013)

“Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading. He did not permit it and would fly in a rage when he caught me in the act. He hid the candles when he found that I was reading in secret. He did not want me to spoil my eyes. But I obtained tallow, made the wicking and cast the sticks into tin forms, and every night I would bush the keyhole and the cracks and read, often till dawn.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Secret, Books, Rage, Passion

“What they had between them was still as fragile as a flickering candle flame, as delicate as eggshell - and he knew that if it shattered, if he somehow let it break and be destroyed, something inside him would shatter too, something that could never be fixed.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Simon, pg. 224
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“Instinctively we both looked for the inscriptions we cut, once upon a time, on trees and on stones, in foolish delight. We sought them like scattered treasure, on the strange cheeks of the old willows, near the tendrils of the fall, on the birches that stand like candles in front of the violet thicket, and on the old fir which so often sheltered us with its dark wings. Many inscriptions have disappeared. Some are worn away because things do; some are covered by a host of other inscriptions or they are distorted and ugly. Nearly all have passed on as if they had been passers-by.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts

Tree, Time

“There is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle.”

Michael Faraday book The Chemical History of a Candle

The Chemical History of a Candle (1860)

Nature, Study

“By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.”

Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733–1812) Irish playwright and librettist

The Maide of the Mill (1765), Act i, scene 2.

Light

“Hidden in hollows and behind clumps of rank brambles were large tents, dimly lighted with candles, but looking comfortable. The kind of comfort they supplied was indicated by pairs of men entering and reappearing, bearing litters; by low moans from within and by long rows of dead with covered faces outside. These tents were constantly receiving the wounded, yet were never full; they were continually ejecting the dead, yet were never empty. It was as if the helpless had been carried in and murdered, that they might not hamper those whose business it was to fall to-morrow.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: What I Saw At Shiloh (1881), V

Men, Business, Light, Dead

“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.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

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.

Light, Passion, Time, Future

“Bell, book, and candle.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 4.

Books

“From the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick to receive the candle. But man is only briefly competent:…After fifty his performance is of poor quality; the intervals between are wide, and its satisfactions of no great quality to either party; whereas his great-grandmother is as good as new.”

Mark Twain book Letters from the Earth

Letters from the Earth (1909)

Time, Age

“Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out!”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura — and so goodbye…
Tom, Scene Seven
The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Faith, Drink

“For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye….”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Tom, Scene Seven
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! — for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura — and so goodbye…

World

“There was her face, like a summer peach, beautiful and warm, and the light of the candles reflected in her dark eyes. [He] held his breath. The entire world waited and held its breath.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

World, Beauty, Light, Waiting

“The realization wasn't crushing. It was gentle, like a final tendril of smoke from a dying candle.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

“Grief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature.”

Anthony Rapp book Without You

Source: Without You

Change

“I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom. I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me, so I lit a candle and listened to its comfortable voice of light until I was asleep.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Light, Night

“Unwinds didn't go out with a bang-they didn't even go out with a whimper. they went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Silence

“Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.”

Mario Vargas Llosa book The War of the End of the World

Source: The War of the End of the World

Science

“You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”

Bob Hope (1903–2003) American comedian, actor, singer and dancer

Birthday

“Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Beauty

“Hazel always used to say There's not enough darkness in the entire universe to snuff out the light of just one little candle.”

Fannie Flagg (1944) American actress, comedian and author

Source: I Still Dream About You

Light, Universe

“Maybe there is another who sees life not as a flickering candle but as a torch that can illuminate an undiscovered world.”

Jimmy Buffett book A Salty Piece of Land

Source: A Salty Piece of Land

Life, World

“Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles?”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Star

“There are two ways of spreading light.. to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Deep, Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

“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)

Light

“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

Depressing, Life, Search, Light

“… if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of Confidence. Either that or a scented candle.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Variant: You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle
Source: One Day

Life, Confidence

“Carry a candle in the dark, be a candle in the dark, know that you're a flame in the dark.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

“I love you, Clary," he said without looking at her. He was staring out into the church, at the row of lighted candles, their fold reflected in his eyes. "More than I ever--" He broke off. "God. More than I probably should. You know that, don't you?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, God, Light

“Way out in the country tonight he could smell the pumpkins ripening toward the knife and the triangle eye and the singeing candle.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine

Way, Singing, Country

“i sometimes felt as if these marks on my body were a kind of code, which blossomed, then faded, like invisible ink held to a candle. But if they were a code, who held the key to it? I was sand, I was snow—written on, rewritten, smoothed over.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

“Five white candles surrounded my summoning circle, the points of an invisible pentacle. White for protection. And because they’re the cheapest color at Wal-Mart.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

Color

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be
The candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

"Vesalius in Zante (1564)", in North American Review (November 1902), p. 631
Variant: There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it.

Deep, Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

“Why do men think you can pick love up and re-light it like a candle? Women know when love is over.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Love, Women, Men, Thinking

“When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
Willingly burning my self
To light up the darkness around me.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Life, Light

“I'm Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose.”

Anne Rice book The Vampire Lestat

Source: The Vampire Lestat

Death, Heart

“Miracles don't happen. You make them happen. They're not wishes or dreams or candles on a cake. They're not impossible. Reality is real. It's totally and completely under my control.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: Far from Xanadu

Dreams, Reality

“my candle burns at both ends it will not last the night but arh my friends and oh my foes it gives a lovely light”

Roald Dahl book Boy

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.
Misattributed
Variant: My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
Source: Boy: Tales of Childhood

Love, Light, Night

“The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Source: Away

Missing You, Past

“Memory is a part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our hearts pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work to: it keeps us who we are.~Candle”

Gregory Maguire book Son of a Witch

Source: Son of a Witch

Memory, Heart, Parting

“A stray fact: insects are not drawn to candle flames, they are drawn to the light on the far side of the flame, they go into the flame and sizzle to nothingness because they're so eager to get to the light on the other side.”

Michael Cunningham book By Nightfall

Source: By Nightfall

Light

“I'm a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can't see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.”

Nadine Gordimer book The House Gun

Source: The House Gun

“Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self; that's why it survives."

[, Newsweek Magazine, March 25, 2010]”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Light, Reading

“Magnus thought of James Herondale, burning up with too much light, too much love, too much, too much- while the boy in the portrait was as lovely as a dying poet, with the fragile beauty of a candle about to gutter out.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

Love, Beauty, Boy, Light

“When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 2 : Balthamos and Baruch
Context: Will considered what to do. When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they’d never existed. At the moment all Will’s choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all.

Way

“I found the candles—atrocious air freshening ones that smelled like fake pine.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

“Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surrounds us or we light a candle to see by.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Light, Evil, Indifference

“Love is not a candle burning down. Life is. And love and life are not the same or else Love, having choice, nobody would ever die.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

Love, Life

“Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.”

Malcolm Gladwell book Blink

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Attitude, Peaceful, Life, Future

“She only felt that the candle would burn better, the packing go easier, the world be happier, if she could give and receive some human love.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Love, World

“Last week the candle factory burned down. Everyone just stood around and sang, 'Happy Birthday.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Birthday, Happiness

“You know what I think? I think that if a young woman doesn't engage in the act of occasionally wishing on a star or a flower or a birthday cake full of candles, then we're forfeiting one of the sweetest whimsies of our youth.”

Robin Jones Gunn (1955) American writer

Source: On a Whim

Youth, Star, Flowers, Birthday

“For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

God

“Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 40
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Love

“If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my Lord”

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

"You Want It Darker" · Full text online http://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-you-want-it-darker-lyrics · YouTube audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0nmHymgM7Y You Want It Darker (2016)

Game, Help

“The conditions at IISc were no match to the American centres but it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

C. N. R. Rao (1934) Indian chemist

How I made it: CNR Rao, Scientist (2010)

Light

“To see a candle’s light, one must take it into a dark place.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 9, "Orm Embar" (Sparrowhawk)

Light

“A candle is enough to light the world.
It makes it clear. Even at noon
It glistens in essential dark.
At night, it lights the fruit and wine,
The book and bread, things as they are…”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Books, World, Light, Wine

“You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Biko
Song lyrics, Peter Gabriel (III) (1980)

“Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: "My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly." This stranger is a theologian. — Number VIII”

Denis Diderot book Addition aux Pensées philosophiques

Addition aux Pensées philosophiques (1770)

Way, Light, Appearance, Night

“And I live with the dead – my mother, my sister [Sophie], my grandfather, my father [who died in 1889, when Munch was in France]... Every day is the same – my friends have stopped coming – their laughter disturbs me, tortures me.... my daily walk round the old castle becomes shorter and shorter, it tires me more and more to take walks. The fire in the fireplace is my only friend – the time I spend sitting in front of the fireplace gets longer and longer.... at its worst I lean my head against the fireplace overwhelmed by the sudden urge – Kill yourself and then it’s all over. Why live? I light the candle – my huge shadow springs across half the wall, clear up to the ceiling and in the mirror over the fireplace I see the face of my own ghost.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

a note from Saint Cloud, 1898; as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 115
1896 - 1930

Spring, Sister, Laughter, Light

“The days of the future stand in front of us
Like a line of candles all alight —
Golden and warm and lively little candles.”

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet

"Candles" [Κεριά], as translated by Manolis, in Constantine P. Cavafy: Poems (2008) edited by George Amabile

Future

“Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

Advice to his children (1699)

World, Nature, Reading

“Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Candles $3,600
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/384408932061417472] Tweets by year, 2013

Family, Food, Help

“It is a poor sport that is not worth the candle.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Sport

“I still
Light up like a candle burnin when he calls me up
I still
Melt down like a candle burnin everytime we touch
Oh say what you will
He does me wrong and I should be gone
I still
Be lovin you baby and it's much too much”

Macy Gray (1967) American singer-songwriter and actress

Still" (co-written with Jeremy Ruzumna, Bill Esses, Jeff Blue) - YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CntzOovlkmo On How Life Is (1999)

Light, Baby

“I use the example of the rainbow and of the phenomena connected with it, of which sort are the circle around the sun and the stars, likewise the rod lying at the side of the sun or of a star which appears to the eye in a straight line… called the rod by Seneca, and the circle is called the corona, which often has the colors of the rainbow. But neither Aristotle nor Avicenna, in their Natural Histories, has given us knowledge of things of this sort, nor has Seneca, who composed a special book on them. But Experimental Science makes certain of them. [The experimenter] considers rowers and he finds the same colors in the falling drops dripping from the raised oars when the solar rays penetrate drops of this sort. It is the same with waters falling from the wheels of a mill; and when a man sees the drops of dew in summer of a morning lying on the grass in the meadow or the field, he will see the colors. And in the same way when it rains, if he stands in a shady place and if the rays beyond it pass through dripping moisture, then the colors will appear in the shadow nearby; and very frequently of a night colors appear around the wax candle. Moreover, if a man in summer, when he rises from sleep and while his eyes are yet only partly opened, looks suddenly toward an aperture through which a ray of the sun enters, he will see colors. And if, while seated beyond the sun, he extend his hat before his eyes, he will see colors; and in the same way if he closes his eye, the same thing happens under the shade of the eyebrow; and again, the same phenomenon occurs through a glass vessel filled with water, placed in the rays of the sun. Or similarly if any one holding water in his mouth sprinkles it vigorously into the rays and stands to the side of the rays; and if rays in the proper position pass through an oil lamp hanging in the air, so that the light falls on the surface of the oil, colors will be produced. And so in an infinite number of ways, as well natural as artificial, colors of this sort appear, as the careful experimenter is able to discover.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Majus

6th part Experimental Science, Ch.2 Tr. Richard McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers Vol.2 Roger Bacon to William of Ockham
Opus Majus, c. 1267

Books, Color, Way, History

“.. at least fifty [gouaches painted in complete dark], one after another. Then I made a light, a candle, and I picked them up and turned them around, as I couldn't see a top or a bottom. I finished them off as I felt fit, a bit more white or a red spot [in his studio in Amsterdam, in 1947”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Quote from a talk in 1990 with Rudi Fuchs; in 'Appel, about growing older'; as quoted by Frank van der Ploeg, in 'The Low Countries'. Jaargang 12(2004) http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_low001200401_01/_low001200401_01_0027.php

Light, Painting

“One candle is enough. Its gentle light
will be more suitable, will be more gracious
when the Shades arrive, the Shades of Love.”

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet

To Call Up the Shades http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=17&cat=1 Collected Poems (1992)

Love, Light

“Oh, the moon is fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of new-mown hay;
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.”

Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) Novelist, journalist

On the Banks of the Wabash (1896), chorus; this song as a whole was written by Dreiser's brother Paul (known as Paul Dresser); but Dreiser stated that "I wrote the first verse and chorus", in A Hoosier Holiday (1916) Ch. XLIII: "The Mystery of Coincidence".

Light

“It is better to curse the darkness than to light a candle, because, first of all, how much light is one candle going to shed anyway? And secondly, what is there to see that is so important? Whereas cursing is always satisfying. The next time I find myself in the dark, I will curse heartily.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

October 30
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Light, Time

“You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 3 (Master Hand)

World, Knowledge, Light, Evil