Quotes about lighting
page 28

Mark Hopkins (educator) photo

“The movement has indeed been slow, and not such as man would have expected; but it has been analogous to the great movements of God in His providence and in His works. So, if we may credit the geologists, has this earth reached its present state. So have moved on the great empires. So retribution follows crime. So rise the tides. So grows the tree with long intervals of repose and apparent death. So comes on the spring, with battling elements and frequent reverses, with snowbanks and violets, and, if we had no experience, we might be doubtful what the end would be. But we know that back of all this, beyond these fluctuations, away in the serene heavens, the sun is moving steadily on; that these very agitations of the elements and seeming reverses, are not only the sign, but the result of his approach, and that the full warmth and radiance of the summer noontide are sure to come. So, O Divine Redeemer, Sun of Righteousness, come Thou! So will He come. It may be through clouds and darkness and tempest; but the heaven where He is, is serene; He is "traveling in the greatness of His strength; "and as surely as the throne of God abides, we know He shall yet reach the height and splendor of the highest noon, and that the light of millennial glory shall yet flood the earth.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 418.

Julia Ward Howe photo
Bob Seger photo
Maria Edgeworth photo

“Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people.”

Edward Robert Harrison (1919–2007) British astronomer

Smithsonian Magazine, December, 1995.

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“It is light that defeats the dark.”

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

Source: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 7 (Ged)

John the Evangelist photo

“Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

Jesus in John 3:19-20 KJV
Gospel of John

“[Boulding's belief in] the immediate experience of the Holy Spirit, or Inward Light, available to every man to teach, guide, reprove, and draw him up toward goodness.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Organizational Revolution: A study in the ethics of economic organization, 1953, p. 253. cited in: D.A. Latzko (1995) " Kenneth E. Boulding (18 January 1910-19 March 1993) http://www.personal.psu.edu/~dxl31/research/otherstuff/boulding.html" in: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.

Swami Vivekananda photo
Antonin Artaud photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Báb photo
James Stephens photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Megan Mullally photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“A thousand songs from a thousand boughs
The glad birds' pleasure declare;
The rills are laughing in crystal light—
For the presence of Spring is there.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(3rd March 1827) Birthday in Spring
The London Literary Gazette, 1827

Nick Herbert photo
Martin Heidegger photo
Henry James photo
José Rizal photo
Henry Adams photo
William Blake photo

“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.”

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

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Lines 8–9

H. Rider Haggard photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Patricia A. McKillip photo
Nyanaponika Thera photo
Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Anthony Watts photo
Ilana Mercer photo
Charles Kingsley photo

“In the light of fuller day,
Of purer science, holier laws.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

On the Death of a certain Journal, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Ring in the nobler modes of life / with sweeter manners, purer laws", Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, cvi, Stanza 4.
Attributed

John Muir photo
Victor Hugo photo

“This is the battle between day and night… I see black light.”

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

C'est ici le combat du jour et de la nuit... Je vois de la lumière noire.
Last words (1885-05-22); quoted in Olympio, ou la vie de Victor Hugo by André Maurois (1954)

Herbert Marcuse photo
Prem Rawat photo
Margaret Mead photo
Adelaide Anne Procter photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak photo

“No dignity is higher in the eyes of God than royalty… Royalty is a light emanating from God, and a ray from the sun, the illuminator of the universe.”

Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak (1551–1602) vizier

Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazl. trans. by H. Blochmann, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

Phillis Wheatley photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Gustav Stresemann photo
Brandon Boyd photo

“Wait, there is a light, there is a fire, illuminated attic. Fate or something better, I could care less, Just stay with me a while”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Light Grenades (2006)

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Jonah Goldberg photo
Margaret Fuller photo
George W. Bush photo
Jane Roberts photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo

“Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Act II.
The Captivity, An Oratorio (1764)

Gabrielle Roy photo
Henry Adams photo
William S. Burroughs photo
Toni Morrison photo

“A glimmer of light is better than no illumination at all.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

February 26, 1964, page 52.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Talib Kweli photo
Geoff Boycott photo

“He can be so rude to people that sometimes you just want to punch his lights out.”

Geoff Boycott (1940) cricket player of England

Co-commentator Mark Nicholas, Via Cricinfo http://www.cricinfo.com/quote/content/story/231681.html, 2005.

Angela of Foligno photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“What is the world that lies around our own? Shadowy, unsubstantial, and wonderful are the viewless elements, peopled with spirits powerful and viewless as the air which is their home. From the earth's earliest hour, the belief in the supernatural has been universal. At first the faith was full of poetry; for, in those days, the imagination walked the earth even as did the angels, shedding their glory around the children of men. The Chaldeans watched from their lofty towers the silent beauty of night — they saw the stars go forth on their appointed way, and deemed that they bore with them the mighty records of eternity. Each separate planet shone on some mortal birth, and as its aspect was for good or for evil, such was the aspect of the fortunes that began beneath its light. Those giant watch-towers, with their grey sages, asked of the midnight its mystery, and held its starry roll to be the chronicle of this breathing world. Time past on, angels visited the earth no more, and the divine beliefs of young imagination grew earthlier. Yet poetry lingered in the mournful murmur of the oaks of Dodona, and in the fierce war song of the flying vultures, of whom the Romans demanded tidings of conquest. But prophecy gradually sank into divination, and it is a singular proof of the extent both of human credulity and of curiosity, to note the various methods that have had the credit of forestalling the future. From the stars to a tea-cup is a fall indeed”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Literary Remains

Dante Gabriel Rossetti photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 52

Alfred Horsley Hinton photo
Haruo Nakajima photo
H. Rider Haggard photo

“I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success. They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala’s army on the narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face of a single warrior. There they were—going to certain death, about to quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a complete indifference to its bitter fruits.”

Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 14, "The Last Stand of the Greys"

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira photo
John Muir photo
John Constable photo

“I have likewise made many 'skies' and effects — for I wish it could be said of me as Fuselli says of Rembrandt, 'he followed nature in her calmest abodes and could pluck a flower on every hedge — yet he was born to cast a steadfast eye on the bolder phenomena of nature'… We have had noble clouds & effects of light & dark & color.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from a letter to Rev. John Fisher in 1821 on his oil-sketches of stormy weather, as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London 1993), p. 222
1820s

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?”

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

Source: Earthsea Books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 2 (Ogion)

David Brewster photo
Michael Swanwick photo
John Ruysbroeck photo
Richard Bach photo
Mata Amritanandamayi photo
John Fante photo
Sarah Doudney photo

“… [Y]our observer's camera is clicking steadily. It's beautiful up above the sunlit clouds. The smooth drone of your twin motors makes you happy. You feel like singing and then you do. Then out of the corner of your eye, you see four black dots, growing larger momentarily. It's an enemy patrol of German Messerschmitts. Your gunner has seen them too. You hear the rattle of the machine gun as you put your bomber in a fast climbing turn, but the Messerschmitt fighters climb faster. They form under your tail, two on each side. One by one, they attack. A yellow light flashes in front of you. The first fighter slips away while the next comes on at you. Again that smashing yellow flame. Your observer falls over unconscious. Before you can think, the next Messerschmitt is upon you. A terrific jolt. Your port engine belches smoke. It's been hit…. You force-land on the first Allied airfield. That night, seated next to a hospital bed where your observer nurses a scalp wound, you hear an enemy communique. A British bomber was shot down over the lines today. Well, you puff a cigarette and grin.”

Larry LeSueur (1909–2003) American journalist

Woo, Elaine. " Larry LeSueur/'Murrow Boy' former war correspondant http://articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/07/local/me-lesueur7", (obituary), Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2003, accessed June 21, 2011. As quoted by Stanley W. Cloud and Lynne Olson in The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism, ISBN 0395877539. LeSueur just "after interviewing a young British pilot who had just flown a reconnaissance mission over Germany.

François Fénelon photo
Jean Cocteau photo

“Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

"Le Secret Professionnel" (originally published 1922); later published in Collected Works Vol. 9 (1950)
A Call to Order (1926)

Abraham Isaac Kook photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Herbert Spencer photo

“What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave's actions — a control which is habitually for the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of sundry gradations. Remembering that originally the slave is a prisoner whose life is at the mercy of his captor, it suffices here to note that there is a harsh form of slavery in which, treated as an animal, he has to expend his entire effort for his owner's advantage. Under a system less harsh, though occupied chiefly in working for his owner, he is allowed a short time in which to work for himself, and some ground on which to grow extra food. A further amelioration gives him power to sell the produce of his plot and keep the proceeds. Then we come to the still more moderated form which commonly arises where, having been a free man working on his own land, conquest turns him into what we distinguish as a serf; and he has to give to his owner each year a fixed amount of labour or produce, or both: retaining the rest himself. Finally, in some cases, as in Russia before serfdom was abolished, he is allowed to leave his owner's estate and work or trade for himself elsewhere, under the condition that he shall pay an annual sum. What is it which, in these cases, leads us to qualify our conception of the slavery as more or less severe? Evidently the greater or smaller extent to which effort is compulsorily expended for the benefit of another instead of for self-benefit. If all the slave's labour is for his owner the slavery is heavy, and if but little it is light. Take now a further step. Suppose an owner dies, and his estate with its slaves comes into the hands of trustees; or suppose the estate and everything on it to be bought by a company; is the condition of the slave any the better if the amount of his compulsory labour remains the same? Suppose that for a company we substitute the community; does it make any difference to the slave if the time he has to work for others is as great, and the time left for himself is as small, as before? The essential question is—How much is he compelled to labour for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labour for his own benefit? The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

The Man versus the State (1884), The Coming Slavery

Anastacia photo

“I can see the light of day
Even through the rainy haze.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Dark White Girl
Resurrection (2014)

Rudy Rucker photo
Richard Feynman photo

“The clearsighted eye turns the light back
to see its own Original Nature…”

Frederick Franck (1909–2006) Dutch painter

Source: Echoes from the Bottomless Well (1985), p. 38

James Bradley photo

“My Instrument being fixed, I immediately began to observe such Stars as I judged most proper to give me light into the Cause of the Motion… There was Variety enough of small ones; and not less than twelve, that I could observe through all the Seasons of the Year; they being bright enough to be seen in the Day-time, when nearest the Sun. I had not been long observing, before I perceived, that the Notion we had before entertained of the Stars being farthest North and South, when the Sun was about the Equinoxes, was only true of those that were near the solstitial Colure: And after I had continued my Observations a few Months, I discovered what I then apprehended to be a general Law, observed by all the Stars, viz. That each of them became stationary, or was farthest North or South, when they passed over my Zenith at six of the Clock, either in the Morning or Evening. I perceived likewise, that whatever Situation the Stars were in with respect to the cardinal Points of the Ecliptick, the apparent Motion of every one tended the same Way, when they passed my Instrument about the same Hour of the Day or Night; for they all moved Southward, while they passed in the Day, and Northward in the Night; so that each was farthest North, when it came about Six of the Clock in the Evening, and farthest South when it came about Six in the Morning.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

A Letter from the Reverend Mr. James Bradley Savilian Proffesor of Astronomy at Oxford, and F.R.S. to Dr. Edmund Halley, Astronom. Reg. &c. giving an Account of a New Discovered Motion of the Fix'd Stars. Philosophical Transactions (Jan 1, 1727) 1727-1728 No. 406. vol. XXXV. pp. 637-661 http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/35/399-406/637.full.pdf+html, pp.643-644

Homér photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Frederick William Robertson photo
Alice Moore Hubbard photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Young Schopenhauer, a zealous and thorough-going Kantian, tried to explain that light would cease to exist along with the seeing eye. "What!" he said, according to Schopenhauer's own report, "looking at him with his Jove-like eyes,"—"You should rather say that you would not exist if the light could not see you?"”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

As quoted by Friedrich Jodl, "Goethe and Kant," The Monist (1901) f. , ed. Paul Carus, Vol. 11, p. 264 https://books.google.com/books?id=gnQKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA264. As translated from Professor Jodl's MS. by W. H. Carruth, of the University of Kansas.

Bliss Carman photo

“Here's to the day when it is May
And care as light as a feather,
When your little shoes and my big boots
Go tramping over the heather.”

Bliss Carman (1861–1929) author

A Toast, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).