Quotes about lighting
page 8

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Mark Twain photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Jeremy Bentham photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Voltaire photo
Voltaire photo

“Thus, almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original minds borrowed from one another. Miguel de Cervantes makes his Don Quixote a fool; but pray is Orlando any other? It would puzzle one to decide whether knight errantry has been made more ridiculous by the grotesque painting of Cervantes, than by the luxuriant imagination of Ariosto. Metastasio has taken the greatest part of his operas from our French tragedies. Several English writers have copied us without saying one word of the matter. It is with books as with the fire in our hearths; we go to a neighbor to get the embers and light it when we return home, pass it on to others, and it belongs to everyone”

"Lettre XII: sur M. Pope et quelques autres poètes fameux," Lettres philosophiques (1756 edition)
Variants:
He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariofio Boyardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire; we fetch it from our neighbour, kindle it as home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Historical and Critical Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire (1786) by Louis Mayeul Chaudon, p. 348
What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
As translated in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2008), by James Geary, p. 373
Original: (fr) Ainsi, presque tout est imitation. L’idée des Lettres persanes est prise de celle de l’Espion turc. Le Boiardo a imité le Pulci, l’Arioste a imité le Boiardo. Les esprits les plus originaux empruntent les uns des autres. Michel Cervantes fait un fou de son don Quichotte; mais Roland est-il autre chose qu'un fou? Il serait difficile de décider si la chevalerie errante est plus tournée en ridicule par les peintures grotesques de Cervantes que par la féconde imagination de l'Arioste. Métastase a pris la plupart de ses opéras dans nos tragédies françaises. Plusieurs auteurs anglais nous ont copiés, et n'en ont rien dit. Il en est des livres comme du feu de nos foyers; on va prendre ce feu chez son voisin, on l’allume chez soi, on le communique à d’autres, et il appartient à tous.

Robert Browning photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Felix Adler photo
George Lincoln Rockwell photo
Morihei Ueshiba photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Dorothy Thompson photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Bob Marley photo

“Excuse me while I light my spliff (spliff)
Good God I gotta' take a lift (lift)
From reality I just can't drift (drift)
That's why I am staying with this riff (riff)

Take it easy, easy skanking
Got to take it easy, easy skanking.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Easy Skanking, from the album Kaya (1978) · Video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlqB13iJu2o
Song lyrics

Prevale photo

“True friends know how to listen with the heart, evaluate with reason and relate through their experiences. They treasure everything that lights up their eyes and warms their soul.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) I veri amici sanno ascoltare con il cuore, valutare con la ragione e relazionarsi attraverso le proprie esperienze. Fanno tesoro di tutto ciò che illumina i loro occhi e riscalda la loro anima.
Source: prevale.net

Kanye West photo
Kanye West photo
Kanye West photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
Vera Rubin photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“I've never felt so… light.”

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Albert Einstein photo
Milan Kundera photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Albert Einstein photo

“As the area of light expands, so does the perimeter of darkness.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.

Tom Waits photo

“It is better to recognise that we are in darkness than to pretend that we can see the light.”

Hedley Bull (1932–1985) Australian academic

Source: The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics

Simon Armitage photo
Francesca Lia Block photo

“There is no light for those who do not know darkness.”

Takehiko Inoue (1967) Japanese artist

Source: Takehiko Inoue Quotes https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/147221.Takehiko_Inoue

Garrison Keillor photo

“Some people have a love of their fellow man in their hearts, and others require a light anesthetic.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Life Among the Lutherans

Neal Shusterman photo
Arthur Nersesian photo
Jeanette Winterson photo

“You are a pool of clear water where the light plays”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

“You are a light that will always guide me, a whisper I'll always strain to hear.”

Lora Leigh (1965) American writer

Source: Maverick

Rick Riordan photo
Gertrude Stein photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Franz Kafka photo

“A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.”

87
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Variant: Faith, like a guillotine. As heavy, as light.

Henry James photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Justin Cronin photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Charles Bukowski photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Juliet Marillier photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Lydia Millet photo
Mark Z. Danielewski photo
John Wesley photo

“Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

As quoted in The Peaceful Path of Prosperity : Practical and Spiritual Approaches to Enrich Your Life with Your Inner Wealth (2001) by Danny Babineaux; not found in any record of Wesley before 2001.
Misattributed
Variant: I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn.

Patrick Rothfuss photo
Juliet Marillier photo
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Zadie Smith photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Jeffrey Eugenides photo
Joseph Conrad photo
Sarah Dessen photo
George Carlin photo
Lorrie Moore photo
Richard Siken photo
Flannery O’Connor photo

“Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Richard Brautigan photo
Alyson Nöel photo
Edith Wharton photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Italo Calvino photo

“One should be light like a bird and not like a feather.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Source: Six Memos For The Next Millennium

Leonard Cohen photo

“Everything has a crack in it; that's how the light gets in.”

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

"Anthem"
The Future (1992)
Variant: There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
Source: Selected Poems, 1956-1968
Context: Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

Richelle Mead photo