Darken Quotes

I like to help others and count it as my greatest pleasure in life to see a person free himself of the shadows which darken his days. ~ L. Ron Hubbard

For if a man by magical arts and sacrifices will bring down the moon, and darken the sun, and induce storms, or fine weather, I should not believe that there was anything divine, but human, in these things, provided the power of the divine were overpowered by human knowledge and subjected to it. ~ Hippocrates

The Shadow shall rise across the world, and darken every land, even to the smallest corner, and there shall be neither Light nor safety. And he who shall be born of the Dawn, born of the Maiden, according to Prophecy, he shall stretch forth his hands to catch the Shadow, and the world shall scream in the pain of salvation. All Glory be to the Creator, and to the Light, and to he sho shall be born again. May the Light save us from him.
-from Commentaries on the Karaethon Cycle Sereine dar Shamelle Motara Counsel-Sister to Comaelle, High Queen of Jaramide (circa 325 AB, the Third Age) ~ Robert Jordan

At This Moment Of Time

Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the water
They stand in the crowd lining the shore
Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes
Are haunted by water

Disturb me, compel me. It is not true
That "no man is happy," but that is not
The sense which guides you. If we are
Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream),
You are exact. You tug my sleeve
Before I speak, with a shadow's friendship,
And I remember that we who move
Are moved by clouds that darken midnight ~ Delmore Schwartz

Go, and never darken my towels again. ~ Groucho Marx

You're still such an unbelievably good-looking man. I need you, Kane." Avery watched lust darken his husband's eyes. ~ Kindle Alexander

The season of the world before us will be like no other in the history of mankind. Satan has unleashed every evil, every scheme, every blatant, vile perversion ever known to man in any generation. Just as this is the dispensation of the fullness of times, so it is also the dispensation of the fullness of evil. We and our wives and husbands, our children, and our members must find safety. There is no safety in the world: wealth cannot provide it, enforcement agencies cannot assure it, membership in this Church alone cannot bring it.
As the evil night darkens upon this generation, we must come to the temple for light and safety. In our temples we find quiet, sacred havens where the storm cannot penetrate to us. There are hosts of unseen sentinels watching over and guarding our temples. Angels attend every door. As it was in the days of Elisha, so it will be for us: "Those that be with us are more than they that be against us."
Before the Savior comes the world will darken. There will come a period of time where even the elect will lose hope if they do not come to the temples. The world will be so filled with evil that the righteous will only feel secure within these walls. The saints will come here not only to do vicarious work, but to find a haven of peace. They will long to bring their children here for safety's sake.
I believe we may well have living on the earth now or very soon the boy or babe who will be the prophet of the Church when the Savior comes. Thos ~ Vaughn J. Featherstone

The real frienship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darken. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

He thinks he is a flower to be looked at And when he pulls his frilly nylon pants right up tight He feels a dedicated follower of fashion. When a waiter at Buckingham Palace spilled soup on her dress: Never darken my Dior again! ~ Ray Davies

Every time you start a new job, you're starting from the beginning again and it's terrifying. And you feel like you're going to be fired and told to go home and never to darken the doors of these people ever again. ~ Emily Mortimer

Invitation to Eternity

Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of bright and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor light nor life to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me?

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean's waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And darkness darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not?

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be -
That was and is not - yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?

The land of shadows wilt thou trace,
Nor look nor know each other's face;
The present marred with reason gone,
And past and present both as one?
Say, maiden, can thy life be led
To join the living and the dead?
Then trace thy footsteps on with me:
We are wed to one eternity. ~ John Clare

The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

Alas, Islam turned against science in the twelfth century. The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, who argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God's hands in chains. According to al-Ghazzali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder. After al-Ghazzali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries. ~ Steven Weinberg

But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths. ~ J. Sheridan Le Fanu

A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves. ~ Orson Welles

The insidious reasons for a brown girl's self-loathing won't be surprising to any woman of color. I cannot rightly compare my own struggles to those of another minority, as each ethnicity comes with its own baggage and the South Asian experience is just one variation on the experience of dark-skinned people everywhere. As parents and grandparents often do in Asian countries, my extended family urged me to avoid the sun, not out of fear that heatstroke would sicken me or that UV rays would lead to cancer, but more, I think, out of fear that my skin would darken to the shade of an Untouchable, a person from the lowest caste in Indian society, someone who toils in the fields. The judgments implicit in these exhortations - and what they mean about your worth - might not dawn on you while you're playing cricket in the sand. What's at stake might not dawn on you while, as a girl, you clutch fast to yourself your blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll named Helen. But all along, the message that lighter skin is equivalent to a more attractive, worthier self is getting beamed deep into your subconscious. Western ideals of beauty do not stop at ocean shores. They pervade the world and mingle with those of your own country to create mutant, unachievable standards. ~ Padma Lakshmi

Unbelief does nothing but darken and destroy. It makes the world a moral desert, where no divine footsteps are heard, where no angels ascend and descend, where no living hand adorns the fields, feeds the birds of heaven, or regulates events. ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher

Anyway, I'm in bed with her, with her bracelets. Her face is a blank, so I darken the lights. Off go her silky undergarments. The bracelets are all she has on. They glint slightly, a pleasant muffled clinking on the sheets. I have a hard-on.
Which, halfway down the ladder, is what I noticed. Just great. Why now? Why didn't I get an erection when I needed one? And why was I getting so excited over two lousy bracelets? Especially under this slicker, with the world about to end. ~ Haruki Murakami

There are seasons vaster and subtler than the cycles of the year. After a time of harmony the world begins to darken. ~ Roderick MacLeish

The little cloud drifting before their glorious sun will darken the earth as long as I please. ~ Samuel Beckett

[To waiter who had spilled soup on her:] Never darken my Dior again! ~ Beatrice Lillie

All love is alike, knowing no season, sun, or clime, but that damn sun does represent lovers' ever-changing time. Why does it rise to show lovers nothing lasts? Does it not see those lovers and think, 'I can eclipse and darken them with a wink. I could kill all love by rising and sending them to their forlorn pasts. I can make them for each other pine, and wait and wait as I rise and set. HA! Buffoons, they are all mine. And every time I shine they owe me a debt. ~ Bruce Crown

Seeing the sky darken & the fields
turn brown & the lake lead-grey
as some enormous scrap of sheet metal
& wind grabs the world around the equator
I am most thankful then for knowing about
the little gold hairs on your belly ~ Al Purdy

The lighter something is, the easier it is to darken it. ~ Bruce Crown

I thought, Love gives light to darken life.
But now i realized ...
Love gives a light to darken life and later it takes the light and make it as a darkest life. ~ Saravanan

But the body fails us and the mirror knows, and we no longer insist that the gray hush be carried off its surface by the cloth, for we have run to fat, and wrinkles encircle the eyes and notch the neck where the skin wattles, and the flesh of the arms hangs loose like an overlarge sleeve, veins thicken like ropes and empurple the body as though they had been drawn there by a pen, freckles darken, liver spots appear, the hairah, the hair is exhausted and gray and lusterless, in weary rolls like cornered lint. ~ William H Gass

The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice. ~ Saul D. Alinsky

We realized that there's a great need in many churches to use the power of the media ... There are a lot of different ways to preach. You can preach by praising. You can preach by preaching sermons. You can preach by just giving someone food when they're hungry. There are people who will never darken a church door but they will come to see a play. ~ Patricia Mauceri

How certain are you that this forest is Darken Wood, Raistin?"
"How certain is one of anything, Half-Elven?" the mage replied. "I am not certain of drawing my next breath. But go ahead. Walk into the wood that no living man has ever walked out. Death is life's one great certainty, Tanis."
The half-elf felt a sudden urge to throw Raistlin off the side of the mountain. ~ Margaret Weis

Any society that could come here could pick up the lights from New York. What should we do about that? Should we darken New York from now until the last human expires? Would we want to turn off all the radars at JFK airport? ~ Seth Shostak

Your evil cannot darken this tale, it was written from the heavens. ~ Christine Zolendz

Smuggled away in whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home, without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer, through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth, without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith. And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem. ~ J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Oh good, you're ready."
"No, I've only just got out of the bath. What should I put on?"
"Put on?" he says in obvious mystification.
"Well I've only got a towel on." When he still doesn't get it I sigh. God, he's so dense sometimes. "Charlie, I haven't got any knickers on," I mutter.
His eyes seem to darken and then he starts laughing. "Mabel, I'm shocked. What sort of massages have you been having? I'm not massaging down there however much you expect it. I'm not that type of boy! ~ Lily Morton

Death had come frequently to the bleak village where the family lived. Indeed, death had been a regular visitor in their own house, taking seven of Chase's twelve brothers and sisters before their fifth birthdays. Whenever, he thought of these children, it was to imagine an inexorable shadow advancing over their tiny forms, at length to darken hearts and eyes. ~ S.K. Rizzolo

very soul were reaching out to him. He looked down at her, his green eyes widening, then he inhaled deeply. She watched in amazement as she literally saw his eyes darken to a forest green. He growled low and long and stalked toward her. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched his face descend towards hers. ~ Alanea Alder

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods. ~ Robert Frost

Wesley Rush was the most disgusting womanizing playboy to ever darken the doorstep of Hamilton High ... but he was kind of hot. Maybe if you could put him on mute ... and cut off his hands ... maybe - just maybe - he'd be tolerable then. Otherwise, he was a real piece of shit. Horn dog shit. ~ Kody Keplinger

Thank God, I can keep the shadows of my life out of my work. I would not wish to darken any other life - I want instead to be a messenger of optimism and sunshine. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Beauty, you need a ride?" He asks me, interrupting my inner slut. His eyes darken slightly, and there is no mistaking the real question behind those words.
"Depends on what kind of ride we're talking about, stud."
He laughs, and even that sounds like sex. "If I thought you were serious, I would tell you to jump on, babe. ~ Harper Sloan

To make a contented slave,' [Frederick] Bailey later wrote, 'it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.' This is why the slaveholders must control what slaves hear and see and think. This is why reading and critical thinking are dangerous, indeed subversive, in an unjust society. ~ Carl Sagan

Like italics and hyphens, quotation marks are to be used as sparingly as possible. They should light the way, not darken it. ~ Eric Partridge

Living above the world, each discovering his own weight, seeing his face brighten and darken with the day, the night, each of the four inhabitants of the house was aware of a presence that was at once a judge and a justification among them. The world, here, became a personage, counted among those from whom advice is gladly taken, those in whom equilibrium has not killed love. ~ Albert Camus

How strange it seems that education, in practice, so often means suppression: that instead of leading the mind outward to the light of day it crowds things in upon it that darken and weary it. ~ Louis Sullivan

The images start to darken and she feels another hunger well up in her, this one having to do with another kind of desire. The desire to feed, to possess, and the aggressive thrill of a predator capturing and killing its prey as it tears into unspoiled flesh. Its teeth ripping and rending and the satisfying coppery taste of blood. There is the ultimate moment of surrender of drinking away the life essence. The pinnacle of lust which mounts in the very last breath, when the light drains from the victim's eyes and when the soul fades ... Then there is only a triumphant cry to the moonlight and the beckoning depths of the ever waiting water. ~ Melissa St. Hilaire

He was not a man to hide his emotions and if tested, his blue eyes would darken, gleaming like unfathomable gems. ~ Teresa Medeiros

All I've ever wanted to do is darken the day and brighten the night. ~ Clive Barker

Our world must always keep hope in their hearts for a better change. As long as you have life, you have the hope to change darken nights into brighter days. Learn from mistakes of yesterday, live for dreams today,
hope for a brighter tomorrow! ~ Timothy Pina

I watch as the branches of the chestnut tree slowly darken and turn black against the sky. the wind drops. the leaves are still. the sun fades and dips beyond the square of the window. the clouds are lit up with gold in the middle; deep dark lines score their edges. I watch the color leave them, watch it leak out in pink and purple, until the whole sky is burning and bruised and finally black. I watch the night come, and the day end. I understand that im saying goodbye. not just to this day itself, but to the world outside. outside. I'm giving up. ~ Sharon Dogar

Childhood hunger in America is as much a paradox as it is a tragedy. Why, in the wealthiest country in the world, should hunger darken the lives and dreams of 12 million children and their families? I believe that, when Americans learn the facts and understand how their involvement can make a difference, banishing childhood hunger will be a national, local and personal priority. ~ Martin Sheen

'O great and mighty Master Li, pray impart to me the Secret of Wisdom!' he bawled.
'Take a large bowl,' I said. 'Fill it with equal measures of fact, fantasy, history, mythology, science, superstition, logic, and lunacy. Darken the mixture with bitter tears, brighten it with howls of laughter, toss in three thousand years of civilization, bellow kan pei - which means "dry cup" - and drink to the dregs.'
Procopius stared at me. 'And I will be wise?' he asked.
'Better,' I said. 'You will be Chinese.' ~ Barry Hughart

At North Farm"

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.
But will he know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

Hardly anything grows here,
Yet the granaries are bursting with meal,
The sacks of meal piled to the rafters.
The streams run with sweetness, fattening fish;
Birds darken the sky. Is it enough
That the dish of milk is set out at night,
That we think of him sometimes,
Sometimes and always, with mixed feelings? ~ John Ashbery

Hiya, Nashira,' he smiled.

'Hi, Jared,' I said, feeling my cheeks darken. I still wasn't used to him to make myself at ease in his company.

'I guess it's weird when I saw I had a feeling you'll be the one,' he said cheerfully. 'Welcome aboard. ~ Deepika Kumaaraguru

4 I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces. 6 In my desperation I prayed, and the LORD listened; he saved me from all my troubles. ~ Anonymous

She made up prayers and said them,
Worshipping unknown gods with unknown singing,
Her customary magic, which would cover
The white moon's face and darken the sun with cloud. ~ Ovid

I hate set dissertations,
and above all things in the world, 'tis one of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right line, betwixt your own and your readers conception. ~ Laurence Sterne

It is possible to think of fragrance existing before a flower was created to contain it, and so it is that God created the world to reveal Himself, to reveal Mercy.
Once or twice a year, perhaps three times, a woman visits the garden, her face ancient, the eyes calm but not passive as she approaches the rosewood tree and begins to pick and examine each fallen leaf. Whether she is in possession of her full mental faculties, no one is sure. Perhaps she is sane and just pretending madness for self-protection. Many decades ago - long before the house was built, when this place was just an expanse of wild growth - she had discovered the name of God on a rosewood leaf, the green veins curving into sacred calligraphy. She picks each small leaf now, hoping for a repetition of the miracle, holding it in her palms in a gesture identical to prayer. The life of the house continues around her and occasionally she watches them, following the most ordinary human acts with an attention reserved by others for much greater events. If it is autumn, she has to remain in the garden for hours, following the surge and pull of the wind as it takes the dropped foliage to all corners. Afterwards, as the dusk begins to darken the air, they sit together, she and the tree, until only the tree remains.
What need her search fulfils in her is not known. Perhaps healing had existed before wounds and bodies were created to be its recipient. ~ Nadeem Aslam

No fear of death will darken St. John's last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith steadfast. ~ Charlotte Bronte

The morning commuters began to animate the distant South Lake Tahoe roads. But craning your head back, you could see the day's blue darken halfway across the sky, and to the west, the night remained yet unconquered - pitch-black, stars in full glimmer, the full moon still pinned in the sky. To the east, the full light of day beamed toward you; to the west, night reigned with no hint of surrender. No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, "Let there be light!" You could not help but feel your specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe, and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus, reaffirming your presence amid the grandeur. ~ Paul Kalanithi

Early in March the crocuses crept alight, then blazed yellow and purple in the park. In fact it is about five o'clock in the evening that the first hour of spring strikes - autumn arrives in the early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day. The air, about to darken, quickens and is run through with mysterious white light; the curtain of darkness is suspended, as though for some unprecedented event. There is perhaps no sunset, the trees are not yet budding - but the senses receive an intimation, an intimation so fine, yet striking in so directly, that this appears a movement in one's own spirit. This exalts whatever feeling is in the heart. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

When you choose to light, I weep, when you choose to darken, I weep ~ Triss

He'd sit and listen to Nana's Jesus stories all day, but when she turned to the Old Testament prophets, Louis Valentine's little face would darken. He said, I hate it when God is mean! ~ Donald McCaig

Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Use dusky words and dusky images.
Darken your speech.
Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,
But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,
Conceiving words,
As the night conceives the sea-sounds in silence,
And out of their droning sibilants makes
A serenade. ~ Wallace Stevens

Silver

The liquid ebony stretches out
and mingles with the midnight sky
where high above,
as on a throne,
is perched that perfect sphere of silver.
She looks upon the lapping waves,
the calm, all serene;
She looks upon the rocky shore,
watching dark nothing
break in two and become
tiny globs of light.
The soft white foam creeps
upon the smooth beige land
to darken it but for a moment,
only to retreat back to its
blackened home
and hide among the vastness.
The silver moon smiles openly,
casting a healthy grin
upon the rippled water below,
sending gifts of silver
to float on seas of woe. ~ Rebecca Harris

Bears, dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river, Startle the forest and make the heights tremble. Clouds darken beneath the darkness of rain, streams pale with a pallor of mist. The gods of Thunder and Lightning Shatter the whole range. ~ Li Bai

The city does sleep, the windows darken and the streets vacate. New York dreams us. Wild, somnambulistic creatures, we move unhurried toward our own disappearance at dawn. ~ Stephanie Danler

Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish them to sing? ~ Jean Paul

He watched her emerald eyes darken with need until they were the color of the Highland hills warmed by the summer sun. ~ Shelly Thacker

And at the word alone, Will felt a great wave of rage and despair moving outwards from a place deep within him, as if his mind were an ocean that some profound convulsion had disturbed. All his life he'd been alone, and now he must be alone again, and this infinitely precious blessing that had come to him must be taken away almost at once.He felt the wave build higher and steeper to darken the sky, he felt the crest tremble and begin to spill, he felt the great mass crashing down with the whole weight of the ocean behind it against the iron-bound coast of what had to be. And he felt himself crying aloud with more anger and pain than he had ever felt in his life, and he found Lyra just as helpless in his arms. But as the wave expended its force and the waters withdrew, the bleak rocks remained; there was no arguing with fate; neither his despair nor Lyra's had moved them a single inch. ~ Philip Pullman

Sad is one of those words that has given up its life for our country, it's been a martyr for the American dream, it's been neutralized, co-opted by our culture to suggest a tinge of discomfort that lasts the time it takes for this and then for that to happen, the time it takes to change a channel. But sadness is real because once it meant something real. It meant dignified, grave; it meant trustworthy; it meant exceptionally bad, deplorable, shameful; it meant massive, weighty, forming a compact body; it meant falling heavily; and it meant of a color: dark. It meant dark in color, to darken. It meant me. I felt sad. ~ Claudia Rankine

You can't save everyone and leave yourself lost, October. It isn't fair. Not to you and not to the people who care about you."
"I'm not lost Tybalt," I said. It was oddly hard to meet his eyes now that they registered as human. His irises were supposed to be malachite green, not muddy hazel, and his pupils were supposed to be oval, not round. "I know exactly where I am."
A smile crossed his face. "If I believed that, I would walk away and never darken your door again. I can forgive you your foolishness only because I know how lost you are. But one day, you'll have to come back home. When you do, I hope you'll find me waiting. ~ Seanan McGuire

I opened my eyes; how could I keep them shut when I could not sleep? The same darkness brooded over me; the same unfathomable black eternity which my thoughts strove against and could not understand. I made the most despairing efforts to find a word black enough to characterize this darkness; a word so horribly black that it would darken my lips if I named it. Lord! how dark it was! and I am carried back in thought to the sea and the dark monsters that lay in wait for me. They would draw me to them, and clutch me tightly and bear me away by land and sea, through dark realms that no soul has seen. I feel myself on board, drawn through waters, hovering in clouds, sinking
sinking. ~ Knut Hamsun

Courage ought to be guided by skill, and skill armed by courage. Neither should hardiness darken wit, nor wit cool hardiness. Be valiant as men despising death, but confident as unwonted to be overcome. ~ Philip Sidney

The past is as powerless to darken the present moment as is a shadow to reach up and drag down the form that casts it. ~ Guy Finley

I already know the first. I killed Darken Rahl with the first. It states that people can be made to believe any lie, either because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it's true. ~ Anonymous

… Looking at her, I think I know better what romantic love is."

… she asked, "What is it?"

"It is parental love," he answered thoughtfully. "Wanting to protect and keep the other person safe. As well as the love of friendship - esteeming the other person, even desiring each other's company beyond all others. And it is lust," he said, meeting her eyes, and was rewarded with seeing them darken, her breath becoming slightly unsteady, one little word jerking her out of her clinical assessment. He smiled, a predatory, seductive grin. "The physical needing of the other person, the quickened pulse, the sweaty heat." His hand, which still rested on hers, began slowly moving, his fingers dancing over her skin. "Combining them makes the result greater than its individual parts. Because it produces something else. It creates … a steadiness. A strength. I can't explain it well - being only an outside observer - but I only know that out of my friends' relationships, my sister's marriage is the epitome of grace. ~ Kate Noble

Nobody ever recognizes me from 'Mad Men,' because they darken my hair a little bit. ~ Anne Dudek

Never darken my Dior again! ~ Beatrice Lillie

Be clear and smiling for those who are glad to see you.
Someone who is not, let his way darken like a pen leaving a faltering ink trail. ~ Rumi

There is a reckoning coming, a reckoning between humanity and the Jewish people which will cause the very heavens to darken and the very devils in hell to hide their faces in shock and terror. You might say we owe them a Holocaust. We've been paying their bill for fifty years, and at some point we're finally going to get what we've paid for. ~ Harold Covington

Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. It is a matter of choice. ~ Maya Angelou

I want the rain to follow me, to mark me with a stripe down my chest and belly, to darken my skin, and blacken my hair. I want to be broken, to be eaten by the anonymous mouths, to be eroded like minutes and seconds, to be reduced to water and a little light. I want to rise, the doors of the rain to open, I will enter, rain alive among my fingers, embroidered on my tongue, and brilliant in my eyes, I want to carry it in my shirt pocket, devote my life to the discovery of its secret, the one blessing it whispers. Rain ~ Li-Young Lee

I was sitting in front of the hut and watching the ground darken and the sea grow a phosphorescent green. Not a soul was to be seen from one end of the beach to the other, not a sail, not a bird. Only the smell of the earth entered through the window.
I rose and held out my hand to the rain like a beggar. I suddenly felt like weeping. Some sorrow, not my own but deeper and more obscure, was rising from the damp earth: the panic which a peaceful grazing animal feels when, all at once, without have seen anything, it rears its head and scents in the air about it that it is trapped and cannot escape.
I wanted to utter a cry, knowing that it would relieve my feelings, but I was ashamed to.
The clouds were coming lower and lower. I looked through the window; my heart was gently palpitating.
What a voluptuous enjoyment of sorrow those hours of soft rain can produce in you! All bitter memories hidden in the depths of your mind come to the surface: separations from friends, women's smiles which have faded, hopes which have lost their wings like moths and of which only a grub remains – and that grub had crawled on to the leaf of my heart and eating it away. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge. ~ Samuel Johnson

Lighting your candle in a darken world ... always helps brighten humanity. ~ Timothy Pina

It is commonplace observation that women are forever trying to straighten their hair if it is curly and curl it if it is straight, bind their breasts if they are large and pad them if they are small, darken their hair if it is light and lighten it if it is dark. Not all these measures are dictated by the fantom of fashion. They all reflect dissatisfaction with the body as it is, and an insistent desire that it be otherwise, not natural but controlled, fabricated. Many of the devices adopted by women are not cosmetic or ornamental, but disguise of the actual, arising from fear and distaste. ~ Germaine Greer

Bebeorh þé ðone bealo-níð, Béowulf léofa,
secg betsta, ond þé þaet sélre gecéos,
éce rǽdas; ofer-hýda ne gým,
mǽre cempa! Nú is þines maegnes blǽd
áne hwíle; eft sóna bið
þaet þec ádl oððe ecg eafoþes getwǽfeð,
oððe fýres feng oððe flódes wylm
oððe gripe méces oððe gáres fliht
oððe atol yldo, oððe éagena bearhtm
forsiteð ond forsworceð; semninga bið,
þaet ðec, dryht-guma, déað oferswýðeð.

O flower of warriors, beware of that trap.
Choose, dear Béowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.
For a brief while your strength is in bloom
but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow
illness or the sword to lay you low,
or a sudden fire or a surge of water
or jabbing blade or javelin from the air
or repellent age. Your piercing eye
will dim and darken; and death will arrive,
dear warrior, to sweep you away. ~ Seamus Heaney

Will tossed his apple core into the air, at the same time drawing a knife from his belt and throwing it. The knife and the apple scaled across the room together, somehow managing to stick into the wall just beside Gabriel's head, the knife driven cleanly through the core and into the wood. "Say that again," said Will. "And i'll darken your daylights for you. ~ Cassandra Clare

It was a lonely, cold thing to live without expectations. ~ Kiersten White

When someone speaks he looks at a mouth, not eyes and their colors, which, it seems to him, will always alter depending on the light of a room, the minute of the day. Mouths reveal insecurity or smugness or any other point on the spectrum of character. For him they are the most intricate aspect of faces. He's never sure what an eye reveals. but he can read how mouths darken into callousness, suggest tenderness. One can often misjudge an eye from its reaction to a simple beam of sunlight. ~ Michael Ondaatje

...to hold twilight or watch it darken, describes the pleasure we take in pausing to observe as day slips into night.
To stand at our window, wrapped in the half-dark and watch the day disappear... is a moment of hygge. ~ Louisa Thomsen Brits

As the morning sun rises bringing needed light to our world ... let me worship you Lord and as the moon illuminates the darken night skies ... let me sing a praise of your greatness! ~ Timothy Pina

And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Some of us attend the church on the corner, professing to worship the living God above all. Others, who rarely darken the church doors, would say worship isn't a part of their lives because they aren't "religious." But everybody has an altar. And every altar has a throne. ~ Louie Giglio

Mariana went off for a walk in the direction of the small church she could see in the distance. She climbed a path that led to the top of a green hill. Below her she could see a solitary ploughman driving his furrow along a green slope. It was after seven o'clock, but this man still went to and fro behind his brown horse, bent over the handles of his plough. She wondered who he was, ploughing so late alone; what he thought of as he turned and re-turned in the air that was beginning to darken. She stood and watched his solitary form moving back and forth. Perhaps he watched her too as she climbed the slope. Their figures contained in this dark bowl of evening, unique in all years, may have remained for ever clear in their distinct far-separated minds - one creature watching another across the dark hill in the coming night and each wondering what life the other led, and what face a clearer sight would show. ~ Gamel Woolsey

Such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude." Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, but making light of the Median numbers, answered "Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade. ~ Herodotus

I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St. John's last hour: his mind will be unclouded; his heart will be undaunted; his hope will be sure; his faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this: "My Master," he says, "has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly, 'Surely I come quickly!' and hourly I more eagerly respond, 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus! ~ Charlotte Bronte

AS the falling rain prepares the earth for the future crops of grain and fruit, so the rains of many sorrows showering upon the heart prepare and mellow it for the coming of that wisdom that perfects the mind and gladdens the heart. As the clouds darken the earth but to cool and fructify it, so the clouds of grief cast a shadow over the heart to prepare it for nobler things. The hour of sorrow is the hour of reverence. It puts an end to the shallow sneer, the ribald jest, the cruel calumny; it softens the heart with sympathy, and enriches the mind with thoughtfulness. Wisdom is mainly recollection of all that was learned by sorrow. Do not think that your sorrow will remain; it will pass away like a cloud. Where self ends, grief passes away. ~ James Allen

Days, pale slices between nights, they blend, not exactly alike, transparencies so lightly tinted that only stacked all together do they darken to a fatal shade. ~ John Updike

Stigmata of Love
A light which lives on what the flames devour,
a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch,
a crucifixion by a single wound,
a sky and earth that darken by each hour,
a sob of blood whose red ribbon adorns
a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch,
a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef,
a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest
this is the wreath of love, this bed of thorns
is where I dream of you stealing my rest,
haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief.
I sought the peak of prudence, but I found
the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart,
and my own thirst for bitter truth and art. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca