Brilliance Of The Light Quotes

I can't really remember the days. The light of the sun blurred and annihilated all color. But the nights, I remember them. The blue was more distant than the sky, beyond all depths, covering the bounds of the world. The sky, for me, was the stretch of pure brilliance crossing the blue, that cold coalescence beyond all color. Sometimes, it was in Vinh Long, when my mother was sad she'd order the gig and we'd drive out into the country to see the nighta s it was in the dry season. I had that good fortune- those nights, that mother. The light fell from the sky in cataracts of pure transparency, in torrents of silence and immobility. The air was blue, you could hold it in your hand. Blue. The sky was the continual throbbing of the brilliance of the light. The night lit up everything, all the country on either bank of the river as far as the eye could reach. Every night was different, each one had a name as long as it lasted. Their sound was that of the dogs, the country dogs baying at mystery. They answered on another from village to village, until the time and space of the night were utterly consumed. ~ Marguerite Duras

Go back to that night when Divine Light, in order to illumine the darkness of men, tabernacled Himself in the world He had made ... The angels and a star caught up in the reflection of that Light, as a torch lighted by a torch, and passed it on to the watchers of sheep and the searchers of skies. And lo! As the shepherds watched their flocks about the hills of Bethlehem, they were shaken by the light of the angels And lo! As wise men from beyond the land of Media and Persia searched the heavens, the brilliance of a star, like a tabernacle lamp in the sanctuary of God's creation, beckoned them on to the stable where the star seemed to lose its light in the unearthly brilliance of the Light of the Word. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Everywhere that is not in shadows is reflecting the brilliance of the light ~ Jazz Feylynn

I had the sense that these locked rooms were more than just a place to hold us. I thought they must be something more important, locking up our very lives and souls, isolating us, stripping even the light from us. This was a prison of the soul. This room had taught me a true loneliness of a kind I had never seen or experienced before, and the meaninglessness of a life without a future. ~ Otsuichi

Someone, somewhere, had tied up the darkness, he thought as he went: the bag of darkness had been tied at the mouth, enclosing within it a host of smaller bags. The stars were tiny, almost imperceptible perforations; otherwise, there wasn't a single hole through which light could pass.
The darkness in which he walked immersed was gradually pervading him. His own footfall was utterly remote, his presence barely rippled the air. His being had been compressed to the utmost - to the point where it had no need to forge a path for itself through the night, but could weave its way through the gaps between the particles of which the darkness was composed. ~ Yukio Mishima

The woman [Cadsuane] looked at the battered tea things as if she had all the time in the world. "Now you know," she said at last, calm as ever, "that I know your future, and your present. The Light's mercy fades to nothing for a man who can channel. Some see that and believe the Light denies those men. I do not. Have you begun to hear voices, yet?"
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He could feel Lews Therin listening.
[...]
"Some men who can channel begin to hear voices." She spoke almost absently, frowning at the flattened sphere of silver and gold. "It is a part of the madness. Voices conversing with them, telling them what to do." The teapot drifted gently to the floor by her feet. "Have you heard any?"
[...]
"I will ask the questions," Rand said firmly. "You seem to forget. I am the Dragon Reborn." You are real, aren't you? he wondered. There was no answer. Lews Therin? Sometimes the man did not answer, but Aes Sedai always drew him. Lews Therin? He was not mad; the voice was real, not imagination. Not madness. A sudden desire to laugh did not help.
Cadsuane sighed. "You are a young man who has little idea where he is going or why, or what lies ahead. You seem overwrought. Perhaps we can speak when you are more settled. Have you any objection to my taking Merana and Annoura away for a little while? I've seen neither in quite some time."
Rand gaped at her. She swooped in, insulted him, threatened him, casually announced she knew about ~ Robert Jordan

The cemetery is my sense of comfort, my sanctuary in a world of darkness, the one piece of light that i have in my life. ~ Jessica Sorensen

The art of lighting the stage consists of putting light where you want it and taking it away from where you don't want it, ~ Max Reinhardt

Careful what you wish for; the darkness in my heart is kept in check by the smallest amount of light. ~ Liberty Stone

Then I looked right at Mama, for the first time in what seemed like forever, and she wasn't looking at me, but into me. She was pulling me to her with her eyes, like she used to do. All of a sudden I could see the light that was Mama's shining out of her eyes. I couldn't help smiling at it.
'Be careful,' my heart warned me.
But I was having a hard time remembering that there as anything to be careful about. Because if I just looked at Mama's eyes ... I could tell that the part of her I thought had gone away forever was still there and glowing, only from deep down inside her. ~ Katherine Hannigan

The Manicheans believed the world was filled with imprisoned light, fragments of a God who destroyed himself because he no longer wish to exist. This light could be found trapped inside a man and animals and plants, and the Manichean mission was to try to release it. Because of this, they abstained from sex, viewing babies as fresh prisons of entrapped light. ~ Jenny Offill

May I invite you to rise to the great potential within you. But don't reach beyond your capacity. Don't set goals beyond your capacity to achieve. Don't feel guilty or dwell on thoughts of failure. Don't compare yourself with others. Do the best you can, and the Lord will provide the rest. Have faith and confidence in Him, and you will see miracles happen in your life and the lives of your loved ones. The virtue of your own life will be a light to those who sit in darkness, because you are a living witness of the fulness of the gospel (see D&C 45:28). Wherever you have been planted on this beautiful but often troubled earth of ours, you can be the one to "succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees" (D&C 81:5). ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character. ~ Mel Brooks

And he could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of Elvish dreams, even as he walked open-eyed in the light of this world. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The nature of catastrophe is, after all, reasonably unvarying in the way it ruins, destroys, wounds and devastates. But if something can be learned from the event - not least something as profound as the theory of plate tectonics - then it somehow puts the ruination into a much more positive light. ~ Simon Winchester

Evie felt queer and light-headed as she stood facing St. Vincent. The moment he slid the ring onto her finger, her heart began beating much too fast, setting off reckless currents of something that was neither eagerness or fear, but a new emotion that heightened her senses unbearably. There was no word for it, this feeling. Tension gripped her while the pounding of her pulse refused to abate. Their hands flattened together, his fingers much longer than hers, his palm smooth and hot.
His head inclined slightly, his face covering hers. Although he was expressionless, a hint of color had glazed the high planes of his cheekbones and crossed the bridge of his nose. And his breath was faster than usual. Surprised by the realization that she had already come to know something as intimate as the normal rhythm of his breathing, Evie averted her gaze. She saw the blacksmith taking a length of white ribbon from one of his daughters, and she flinched a little as he looped it firmly around their joined wrists.
A wordless murmur tickled her ear, and she felt St. Vincent's free hand come up to the side of her neck, stroking her as if she were a nervous animal. She relaxed at his touch, while his fingertips moved over her skin with sensitive lightness. ~ Lisa Kleypas

On the whole, we think that the greatest victories are yet to be won, the greatest deeds yet to be done, and that there are yet in store for our peoples, and for the causes that we uphold, grander triumphs than have ever yet been scored. But be this as it may, we gladly agree that the one plain duty of every man is to face the future as he faces the present, regardless of what it may have in store for him, turning toward the light as he sees the light, to play his part manfully, as a man among men. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

The light within the darkness- you've lost sight of it. ~ Shiro Amano

What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger. They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis's pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still useable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a horse," and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words "see you tomorrow," and the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone. Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to ~ Annie Proulx

Meditation is like light: when meditation comes, politics disappears. So you cannot be meditative and political. That is impossible: you are asking for the impossible. Meditation is not one pole: it is the absence of all conflict, all ambition, all ego trips. ~ Rajneesh

Don't dull the voice of your heart just to please your brain
As it swells into overthought and the desire to be right
Switch on the light of your inner lamp.
Listen to your heart so you can feel from your soul
Don't discount your heart to make your logic fit. ~ Christine Evangelou

Whiteness is the color of death, you know, not black. Wetness is life, the breeder and shaper of life. In the beginning the sun was black. So all light was absorbed before it had a chance to return. And our dreams, then, were empty. ~ Jim Carroll

Picturesqueness is a lost art. We may expect at anytime to hear that a collar ad is blazing its electric lights atop of the largest pyramid. ~ Alice Dunbar Nelson

- The Azan story -

The five daily ritual prayers were regularly performed in congregation, and when the time for each prayer came the people would assemble at the site where the Mosque was being built. Everyone judged of the time by the position of the sun in the sky, or by the first signs of its light on the eastern horizon or by the dimming of its glow in the west after sunset; but opinions could differ, and the Prophet felt the need for a means of summoning the people to prayer when the right time had come. At first he thought of appointing a man to blow a horn like that of the Jews, but later he decided on a wooden clapper, ndqiis, such as the Oriental Christians used at that time, and two pieces of wood were fashioned together for that purpose. But they were never destined to be used; for one night a man of Khazraj, 'Abd Allah ibn Zayd, who had been at the Second 'Aqabah, had a dream whieh the next day he recounted to the Prophet: "There passed by me a man wearing two green garments and he carried in his hand a ndqiis, so I said unto him: "0 slave of God, wilt thou sell me that naqusi" "What wilt thou do with it?" he said. "We will summon the people to prayer with it," I answered. "Shall I not show thee a better way?" he said. "What way is that?" I asked, and he answered: "That thou shouldst say: God is most Great, Alldhu Akbar." The man in green repeated this magnification four times, then each of the following twice: I testify that there is no god but God; I ~ Martin Lings

Will the prized treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? China ~ Jerome K. Jerome

The immensity of the universe didn't suddenly change, but our ability to see and understand this truth changed dramatically. And with that greater light, mankind was introduced to glorious vistas we had never before imagined. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Damn, I can't wait until it get dark,
So I can light these fireworks up at the park,
And celebrate my independence,
It's the 4th of July, but I ain't got 10 cents. ~ Kam

Perhaps..." Resuming his rake's persona, investing every movement with languid grace, he shifted forward, closer. Held her gaze. "You could teach me what it is you need." He let his gaze drift from her eyes to her lips. "I've always been considered a fast learner, and if I'm willing to learn, to devote myself to the study of what you truly want..."
Her lips parted slightly. He raised his gaze once more to her eyes, to the stormy blue. Read her interest, knew he had her undivided attention.
Inwardly smiled. "If I swear I'll do all I can to meet your requirements, shouldn't you accept the...challenge, if you like, to take me as I am and reshape me to your need?"
Holding her gaze, resisting the urge to lower his to her tempting lips, he raised a hand, touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek in a tantalizingly light caress. "You could, if you wished, take on the challenge of taming the ton's foremost rake, of making me your devoted slave...but you'd have to work at it, make the effort and take the time to educate me-arrogantly oblivious male that I am-all of which will be much easier, facilitated as it were, by us marrying. After all, nothing worthwhile is ever attained easily or quickly. If I'm willing to give you free rein to mold me to your liking, shouldn't you be willing to engage?"
She was thinking, considering he could see it in her eyes. She was following his arguments, her mind following the path he wanted it to take.
Shifting his fingers t ~ Stephanie Laurens

The great point in Christianity is the search for an independent content for spiritual life which, according to the insights of its founder, could be elevated, not by the forces of a world external to the soul of man, but by the revelation of a new world within his soul. Islam fully agrees with this insight and supplements it by the further insight that the illumination of the new world thus revealed is not something foreign to the world of matter but permeates it through and through.
Thus the affirmation of spirit sought by Christianity would come not by the renunciation of external forces which are already permeated by the illumination of spirit, but by a proper adjustment of man's relation to these forces in view of the light received from the world within. ~ Muhammad Iqbal

By far the largest single organisms that ever lived are plants, and an impressive percentage of the world's biomass is locked up in plants. [...] The surface of the land is green because of plants, and the surface of the sea would be green too if its floating carpet of photosynthesisers were macroscopic plants instead of microorganisms too small to reflect noticeable quantities of green light. It is as though plants are going out of their way to cover every square centimetre with green, leaving none uncovered. And that is pretty much what they are doing […] From a plant's point of view, a square centimetre of the Earth's surface that is anything but green amounts to a negligently wasted opportunity to sweep up photons. ~ Richard Dawkins

To forgive is to put oneself in a larger gravitational field of experience than the one that first seemed to hurt us. We reimagine ourselves in the light of our maturity and we reimagine the past in the light of our new identity, we allow ourselves to be gifted by a story larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft. ~ David Whyte

There are some people that we know all our lives and yet
never really feel we know them at all. But there are other people - " Unable to resist the temptation, he
ran a feather-light caress down the curve of her cheek with one leather-sheathed knuckle. The cobalt
depths of her eyes flickered with response, but she said nothing, heeding his every word. " - people we
meet in a day, and instantly, it feels as though we've known them all our lives. ~ Gaelen Foley