Quotes about lighting
page 11

“But 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.”

Plutarch book Moralia

I, 4
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh
Context: 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.

Life, World, Soul, Light

“Every day you play with the light of the universe.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Light, Universe

“In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Madagascar. She said”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Light, Housing

“When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Light, Flying

“The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Truth, Fear, Light, Passion

“The light was draining out of the room, going back through the window where it had come from.”

Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Light

“Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

People, Beauty, Light, Sun

“I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Intelligence, Light, Wine

“Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Light

“I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Light, Time

“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Light, Change

“A home filled with nothing but yourself. It's heavy, that lightness. It's crushing, that emptiness.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Tent

Home, Light

“What awaits you? Eternal peace. Serenity. The light on the other side. What awaits me is unknown. The only certainty is that life is an eternal hell.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Life, Peace, Hell, Light

“She is one of God's women fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Women, Men, God, Fashion

“When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Tear, Light

“Sometimes it is easier to see the light when you stand partly in the darkness.”

Garth Nix book Mister Monday

Source: Mister Monday

Light

“Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Source: Farewell Waltz

Jealousy, Light, Personality

“The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Star, Light

“Only when we’re brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Light

“The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity…”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Love, God, Effort, Light

“The universe is a million billion light-years wide, and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. This is the position of the universe with regards to human life.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

Life, Light, Universe

“To give up our imaginary position as the center, to renounce it, not only intellectually but in the imaginative part of our soul, that means to awaken to what is real and eternal, to see the true light and hear the true silence.”

Simone Weil book Waiting for God

Source: Waiting for God

Soul, Imagination, Light, Silence

“The Warrior of the Light is a believer.

Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Love, Life, Light, Appearance

“Em,” he said again, his eyes wide and dark blue in the dim light. “Did you kiss Mark the other night?”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Kiss, Light, Night

“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

“There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

God, Light

“Never doubt God in the darkness what he has given us in the light.”

Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind

Source: A Voice in the Wind

God, Light

“There's so many problems in our world, so much negativity. Don't worry about the darkness — turn on the light and the darkness automatically goes.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

On the Alex Jones Radio show, as quoted in "David Lynch Questions 9/11 On National U.S. Radio" in Prison Planet (25 January 2007)
Source: Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
Context: There's so many problems in our world, so much negativity. Don't worry about the darkness — turn on the light and the darkness automatically goes. Ramp up the light of unity within — help do that for yourself, help do that for the world and then we're really doing something, we're doing something that brings that light of unity.

World, Problem, Light

“Dearest Cecilia, You’d be forgiven for thinking me mad, the way I acted this afternoon. The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don’t think I can blame the heat.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Truth, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“To love beauty is to see light.”

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

Love, Beauty, Light

“For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.”

James Baldwin book Sonny's Blues

Source: Sonny's Blues

Light, Suffering

“And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it's probably because I'm looking at them in the light of what came later…”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Light

“All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in the dog. If one could but realize this knowledge, if one could but bring it into the light of day, if we dogs would but own that we know infinitely more than we admit to ourselves!”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

"Investigations of a Dog"
The Complete Stories (1971)
Source: The Great Wall of China and Other Stories

Dogs, Question, Knowledge, Light

“Darkness is only light's absence.”

Andrew Clements Things That Are

Source: Things That Are

Light

“It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Travel, Star, Light

“Don't think I was the only reason he healed. You're his light, Marissa. Don't ever forget that.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

Thinking, Light, Forgetting

“Everything you see is based on fact of a event thats already happen, Even light only travels so fast.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby

Travel, Light

“Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. I wish not to cry.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Star, Light, Cry

“Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Light

“The blackest night must end in dawn, the light dispel the dreamer's fear.”

Anne McCaffrey (1926–2011) American-Irish novelist

Fear, Light, Night

“The average american spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green. six months wasted, waiting for permission to move on.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Life, Light, Waiting

“I was getting depressed. My life wasn't going anywhere. I needed something, the flashing of lights, glamour, some damn thing. And here I was, talking to the dead. I finished my first drink. The second was ready.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Source: Pulp

Life, Drink, Light, Dead

“We all fail to appreciate each day just how much we already possess. Light, air, freedom, the companionship of friends.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic

Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic

Freedom, Light

“Maybe you have to know darkness before you can appreciate the light.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Ring of Endless Light

Source: A Ring of Endless Light (1980)

Light, Depressing

“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Light, Future, Night, Country

“For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.”

Reba McEntire (1955) American country music artist and actress

Sadness, Way, Light, Singing

“I do believe that his given name is something odd. Peregrine, Penrose- Piers, that's it."
"He sounds like a dock." Lord Sundron put in.
"Mrs. Hutchins called me a light frigate this morning," Linnet said "a dock might be just the thing for me.”

Eloisa James (1962) American academic

Source: When Beauty Tamed the Beast

Light

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

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

Light, Wise, Deep, Inspirational

“The poet lights the light and fades away. But the light goes on and on.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Light

“Go forth and light the lights of war”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

War, Light

“We didn't talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Light

“I live in the light,
But carry my dark with me.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: The Dead of Night

Light

“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Variant: All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.
Source: Anna Karenina

Life, Beauty, Light

“Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Painted Drum

Intelligence, Bird, Light

“I tell you, deep inside you is a fountain of bliss, a fountain of joy. Deep inside your center core is truth, light, love, there is no guilt there, there is no fear there. Psychologists have never looked deep enough.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Love, Truth, Fear, Light

“May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Truth, Understanding, Light, Fight

“Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay, but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none.”

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

Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853)
Source: Bartleby the Scrivener

Happiness, World, Light

“Numb the dark and you numb the light.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Light

“You cannot poison what is between us with your foul words. She is my light in the darkness and Johnny is my pathway ahead.”

Juliet Marillier book Son of the Shadows

Source: Son of the Shadows

Light

“When we focus on what is good and beautiful in someone, whether or not we think that they "deserve" it, the good and beautiful are strengthened merely by the light of our attention.”

Katrina Kenison American writer

Source: The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir

Beauty, Thinking, Light

“For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very well be darkness”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Light

“I believe in low lights and trick mirrors.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Light

“I see thee better in the dark
I do not need a light.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Light

“Lonliness evaporated off of them like the steam off dry ice, and by morning it was just a cloud on the ceiling of the room, then gone with the light.”

Christopher Moore book A Dirty Job

Source: A Dirty Job

Light

“Don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself.”

Sara Henderson (1936–2005) Australian writer

Light, Appearance, Waiting

“You are not evil, Fell. You have just been robbed of love. Of light.”

David Clement-Davies book The Sight

Source: The Sight

Love, Light, Evil

“An evil light sparked in his eyes. "You could always go for Plan B."

"Pound everyone to a bloody pulp until they shut up and cooperate?"

"Exactly."

-Curran and Kate”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Gifts

Light, Evil

“These lights, this brightness, these clusters of human hope, of wild desire—I shall take these lights in my fingers. I shall make them bright, and whether they shine or not, it is in these fingers that they shall succeed or fail.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Love of the Last Tycoon

Source: The Love of the Last Tycoon

Hope, Light

“He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Star, Light, Heart Touching

“He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death.

In place of death there was light.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilych

Death, Fear, Light

“The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Light, Sun

“Remember that each light between sunrise and sunset is worth dying for at least once.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Shadowrise

Light

“Never be ashamed of your love," he said gently. "The only thing to be ashamed of is denying your love. That is what makes the shadow grow within your heart; that is the darkening of the Light. And we all have many loves.”

Alison Croggon book The Riddle

Source: The Riddle

Love, Light, Heart

“What breaks in daybreak? Is it the night? Is it the sun, cracked in two by the horizon like an egg, spilling out light?”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Light, Sun, Night

“The northern lights rise like a kiss to the sea”

Arthur Rimbaud Le Bateau ivre

Source: Le Bateau ivre

Kiss, Light, Sea

“In her glamorous quest for the darkest light and the lowest high, she now found herself wallowing on the bottom of a filthy garbage bin.”

Terri Blackstock (1957) American writer

Source: Intervention

Light

“The true joy of a moonlit night is something we no longer understand. Only the men of old, when there were no lights, could understand the true joy of a moonlit night.”

Yasunari Kawabata book Palm-of-the-Hand Stories

Source: Palm-of-the-Hand Stories

Men, Understanding, Light, Joy

“Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Light

“But the true voyagers are only those who leave
Just to be leaving; hearts light, like balloons,
They never turn aside from their fatality
And without knowing why they always say: "Let's go!”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Source: Les Fleurs du Mal

Light, Heart

“The morning glories and the sunflowers turn naturally toward the light, but we have to be taught, it seems.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Nature, Light

“Schuyler put a gentle hand on Abbadon's feathered extensions, feeling the majestic power underneath their silky weight. She had been frightened once, to see him in this light, but now that she saw his terrifying face, she found it beautiful.”

Melissa de la Cruz book Misguided Angel

Source: Misguided Angel

Beauty, Feeling, Light

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Fear, Light, Joy

“Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Confidence, Light

“One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made. That this is still the morning of creation. That mountains, long conceived, are now being born, brought to light by the glaciers, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

"Alaska Glaciers: Graphic Description of the Yosemite of the Far Northwest", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 5 of 11 part series "Notes of a Naturalist") dated 7 September 1879, published 27 September 1879; reprinted as "Baird Glacier" in Letters from Alaska, edited by Robert Engberg and Bruce Merrell (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pages 28-32 (at page 31); modified slightly and reprinted in Travels in Alaska http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/travels_in_alaska/ (1915), chapter 5, A Cruise in the Cassiar <br class="br">First lines of the documentary film series " The National Parks: America's Best Idea http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/" by Ken Burns. <br class="br">1910s

World, Mountain, Light, Learning