Quotations about Light Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light? ~Maurice Freehill Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. ~Chinese Proverb There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures. ~James Thurber In a profound sense every man has two halves to his being; he is not one person so much as two persons trying to act in unison. I believe that in the heart of each human being there is something which I can only describe as a "child of darkness" who is equal and complementary to the more obvious "child of light." ~Laurens van der Post Moonlight is sculpture. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne Firelight will not let you read fine stories but it's warm and you won't see the dust on the floor. ~Irish Proverb We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own. ~Ben Sweetland Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe. It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished. ~Michael Strassfeld Lethargics are to be laid in the light, and exposed to the rays of the sun for the disease is gloom. ~Aretaeus Live in rooms full of light. ~Cornelius Celsus We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light. ~Evelyn Dunbar You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in. ~Arlo Guthrie There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~Maori Proverb The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light. ~Felix Adler Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul. ~Plato When you possess light within, you see it externally. ~Anaïs Nin You can owe nothing, if you give back its light to the sun. ~Antonio Porchia Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light. ~Norman B. Rice How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! ~John Muir The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun. ~John Greenleaf Whittier The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. ~Vladimir Nabokov Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair... ~Susan Polis Shutz From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light. ~Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. ~Aaron Rose Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships. ~Charles Simic A smile is the light in the window of your face that tells people you're at home. ~Author Unknown His high endeavors are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright. ~William Wordsworth They may as well have called the sun a ball of flaming joy. ~Terri Guillemets Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827 In the beginning there was nothing. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. ~Ellen DeGeneres Light is good from whatever lamp it shines. ~Author Unknown Light can be gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, springlike, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm and soft. ~Sven Nykvist Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we'll need no other light. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe What is to give light must endure burning. ~Viktor Frankl A sensitive plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, and closed them beneath the kisses of night. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant," 1820 Love is not consolation. It is light. ~Friedrich Nietzsche In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. ~Blaise Pascal For light I go directly to the Source of light, not to any of the reflections. ~Peace Pilgrim A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind. ~Annie Dillard Joy requires one to be awake, Adjusting the heart's ambience to bright. Some prefer the dark, as is their right, On grounds of agony, and to forsake Not only bliss, but all that's blessed by light. ~Nicholas Gordon, poemsforfree.com I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more. ~Henry Ward Beecher Where there is sunshine the doctor starves. ~Flemish Proverb Sun spreads through the treetops like an epidemic. ~Dave Bonta, from The Morning Porch blog at www.morningporch.com/post/96792742/orange-tabby Light comes to us unexpectedly and obliquely. Perhaps it amuses the gods to try us. They want to see whether we are asleep. ~H.M. Tomlinson Sunshine is my quest. ~Winston Churchill Light, God's eldest daughter... ~Thomas Fuller Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever? ~Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light. ~Earl Nightingale Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. ~Benjamin Franklin Into my heart's night Along a narrow way I groped; and lo! the light, An infinite land of day. ~Rumi Sometimes just looking up and seeing the light is enough. ~Terri Guillemets Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in. ~Alan Alda Keep your flame lit, and you will never feel darkness. ~J. Parker What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight. ~Joseph Joubert There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. ~N.P. Willis The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Your path is illuminated by the light Yet darkness lets the stars shine bright. ~J.L.W. Brooks I'll tell you how the sun rose a ribbon at a time. ~Emily Dickinson Auld Daddy Darkness... See him in the corners hidin' frae the licht, See him at the window gloomin' at the nicht... ~James Ferguson No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it. ~Terry Pratchett Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. ~John Denver, "Sunshine on My Shoulders" Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed. ~Howard Nemerov Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. ~Rabindranath Tagore The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. ~Matthew Arnold The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light. ~Joseph Campbell Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in. ~Leonard Cohen Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. ~Benjamin Franklin Nothing travels faster than light, with the possible exception of bad news, which follows its own rules. ~Douglas Adams It's a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it's light out. ~Calvin He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself his own dungeon. ~John Milton If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor, a cat will find it and soak it up. ~Jean Asper McIntosh I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. Og Mandino Though my soul may set in darkness, It will rise in perfect light, I have loved the stars too fondly To be fearful of the night. ~Sarah Williams The stars are the street lights of eternity. ~Author Unknown Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart. ~Kahlil Gibran Wine is sunlight, held together by water. ~Galileo Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me? ~Albert Schweitzer An age is called "dark," not because the light fails to shine but because people refuse to see it. ~James Michener For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh Sadness flies on the wings of the morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light. ~Jean Giraudoux How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light. ~Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams