Shining Gem Quotes

That is what a shadow is, an empty space, a hole in the light. Evil is that - a hole in the goodness of God. Evil is all that lacks the goodness of God, a willful choice to turn away from the full goodness of God to that empty of His goodness.
All God makes is good. Can it be that, that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God. That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective, the way the eyes see the shadows. Above the clouds, light never stops shining. ~ Ann Voskamp

Beauty is no dead thing. It is the manifestation of God in nature. There is not one object in nature untouched by man that is not beautiful, for God's manifestation is beauty. It shines through all His works, and not only in those that may give pleasure to man. ~ Annie Besant

The most important trait of a writer is an authentic voice. Writers have to have faith in their own voice, and their own way of doing things. Originality is the gem that every writer possesses. Originality also brings on the most merciless attacks. The world resents originality in the beginning writer, and then rewards it abundantly once that writer has been successfully published. Cherish your own voice. Don't try to sound like anybody else. Sound like yourself and take the slings and arrows and keep going. ~ Anne Rice

I was once in darkness, but now, I see a bright light on my path. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

It is not the place where we are, or the work that we do or cannot do that matters, it is something else. It is the fire within that burns and shines, whatever be our circumstances. ~ Amy Carmichael

My Dear Lord, please help me. Place me in the Center of Your Perfect Will.
Adoro te devote, latens Deitas.
Bread of Life by bread concealed, speaking heart to heart.
Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit.
Let Your presence draw me in here my senses fail.
Visus cactus, gustus in te falliti.
This is truth enough for me.
Peto quod petivit latro paenitens.
Seeing You upon the Cross, flesh and blood, I find.
Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor.
I see not but name You still God and Prince of Life.
O memoriale mortis Domini.
How I thirst to meet Your gaze gloriously revealed. After life's obscurity, let me wake to see. Beauty shining from Your Face for eternity.
Amen. ~ Gina Marinello-Sweeney

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. ~ Voltaire

While President Obama was starting and expanding unconstitutiona l wars overseas, Bradley Manning, whose actions have caused exactly zero deaths, was shining light on the truth behind these wars. ~ Ron Paul

And I know that I am. I am his moon, and his brightly shining star. I am his life, his heart. I am all that and the answer to every unspoken question, the comfort for every hurt, the companion who will walk beside him from now until the end of our lives, reveling in the bliss of each simple chore done in his name, overflowing with beauty because I am blessed to spend my life with my love. ~ Stacey Jay

Beloved youth, you will have your trials and temptations through which you must pass, but there are great moments of eternity which lie ahead. You have our love and our confidence. We pray that you will be prepared for the reins of leadership. We say to you, "Arise and shine forth" and be a light unto the world, a standard to others. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Dreams are shadows cast by truth shining on our darkest secrets ~ Elizabeth Chandler

The trick is to ride the wave,
Fast, wide-open and
in deep Now-magic.
Free, burning fear for fuel
Generous, knowing there is always more where that came from.
Cresting, spray of liquid jewels hanging, shining in the sun and wind.
Flying down the wave in graceful slices.
Rolling, tumbling under, over
Breathless falling, floating into the deep dark beneath.
Rising, face breaks the surface
Laughing
Kneeling, standing
Riding again.
Sunset waits behind the horizon
But daylight begs us to swim
Out beyond
Where our feet can't touch bottom.
Into the deep wild
Where the next wave can
sweep us higher,
Show us what else is possible
In this marvelous place. ~ Jacob Nordby

Why who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know nothing else but miracles, whether they be animals feeding in the fields, Or, birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; These, with the rest, one and all, are to me, miracles. ~ Walt Whitman

Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright. ~ Jose Marti

Her first reaction was one of hope, because his eyes were open and shining with a radiant light she had never seen there before. She prayed to God to give him at least a moment so that he would not go without knowing how much she had love him despite all their doubts, and she felt an irresistible longing to begin life with him over again so that they could say what they had left unsaid and do everything right that they had done badly in the past. But she had to give in to the intransigence of death. (Love in the Time of Cholera) ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Salmon Meunière, piping hot and steaming with the rich aroma of butter!
Sautéed squid liver, boldly fragrant with the scents of garlic and soy sauce!
And a gleaming mound of glittery salmon roe marinated in soy sauce!
"It's a parade of the ultimate in gourmet ingredients!
Somei Saito senpai has created a brand-new culinary gem with his Buttered Seafood Rice Bowl! ~ Yuto Tsukuda

How can I find the shining word, the glowing phrase that tells all that your love has meant to me, all that your friendship spells? There is no word, no phrase for you on whom I so depend. All I can say to you is this, God bless you precious friend. ~ Grace Noll Crowell

On Drinking Alone by Moonlight


Here are flowers and here is wine,
But where's a friend with me to join
Hand in hand and heart to heart
In one full cup before we part?

Rather than to drink alone,
I'll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
The hour and the scene to grace.

Lo, she answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be.
I ween, a merry company

The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up,
And when I dance my shadow fleet
Keeps measure with my flying feet.

But though the moon declines to tipple
She dances in yon shining ripple,
And when I sing, my festive song,
The echoes of the moon prolong.

Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather,
For you my boon companions dear
Come only when the sky is clear. ~ Li Bai

Autumnal
nothing to do with leaves. It is to do with a certain brownness at the edges of the day ... Brown is creeping up on us, take my word for it ... Russets and tangerine shades of old gold flushing the very outside edge of the senses ... deep shining ochres, burnt umber and parchments of baked earth
reflecting on itself and through itself, filtering the light. At such times, perhaps, coincidentally, the leaves might fall, somewhere, by repute. Yesterday was blue, like smoke. ~ Tom Stoppard

Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon? ... when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the most ignorant of their fathers. So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain. It was made to give light to those who dwell upon it, and to other planets; and so will this earth when it is celestialized ~ Brigham Young

I was in an empty field when I came across a tree. This tree was full of white blossoms and succulent cherries. The sun was shining and the breeze was blowing - everything was lovely. I looked back at the tree and its pure white blossoms were stained with blood. I gazed down in front of me, in horror, as a wooden cross marked the place of a small dirty mound. ~ Katlyn Charlesworth

Kill him, you must kill him Jacky, and her, too. Because a real artist must suffer. Because each man kills the thing he loves. ~ Stephen King

Pianos, unlike people, sing when you give them your every growl. They know how to dive into the pit of your stomach and harmonize with your roars when you've split yourself open. And when they see you, guts shining, brain pulsing, heart right there exposed in a rhythm that beats need need, need need, need need, pianos do not run. And so she plays. ~ Francesca Lia Block

I have a secret. My inner smile is shining. ~ Amy Leigh Mercree

Look, now, in the distance, a person, closer, it's two people, hand in hand, ankle deep in the froth. Sunrise in hair, blonde, green bikini, tall, shining. They kiss. Handsy things happening underneath hist trunks, her tongue.
Who wouldn't envy such youth, who wouldn't grieve what has been lost in watching. They come up the dune, she pushing him backward, up.
Study them from the balcony, holding your breath while the couple stops in a smooth bowl of sand, protected by the dunes. She pushes down his trunks, he takes off her bathing suit, top and bottom. Oh yes, you would return to your wife on hands and knees, crawl the distance of the eastern seaboard to feel her fingers once more in your hair.
You are unworthy of her. Yes. No.
Even as you think of flight, you're transfixed by the lovers, wouldn't dare move for fear of making them flap like birds into the blistered sky.
They step into each other, and it's hard to tell where one begins and one ends. Hands in hair and warmth on warmth, into the sand her red knees raised, his body moving.
It is time. Something odd happening though you are not ready for it. There is an overlap. You have seen this before, felt her breath on your nape, the heat of her beneath, and the cold damp of day on your back, the helpless overwhelm, a sense of crossing. The sex reaching it's culmination.
Come. Lip bitten to blood and finish with a roar and birds shoot up and crumbles in the pink folds of an ear. Serrat ~ Lauren Groff

steel tractor implements buried in more overgrown grass, the rotary blades shining bright from recent use by ~ Thomas Hollyday

This conference ? of, for and about women ? is, in itself, a rainbow in the clouds. When numerous women come together and show that they care, not only for themselves but also for each other, that is the occasion when a rainbow is shining down on somebody else. ~ Maya Angelou

The sun shines on everybody. You've got to keep believing. ~ Dontrelle Willis

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty. ~ John Muir

The Inuit say that the stars are holes in heaven. And every time we see the people we loved shining through, we know they're happy. ~ Jodi Picoult

Just as the orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising and lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweler. ~ Oscar Wilde

It was enough to lie there and expand / Till all the stars were shining into me / And I was all the stars that I could see / In all the endless acres of the night. / That was the best of living. ~ Jane Merchant

Christ is a most precious commodity, he is better than rubies or the most costly pearls; and we must part with our old gold, with our shining gold, our old sins, our most shining sins, or we must perish forever. Christ is to be sought and bought with any pains, at any price; we can not buy this gold too dear. He is a jewel more worth than a thousand worlds, as all know who have him. Get him, and get all; miss him and miss all. ~ Thomas Brooks

Even when all is falling apart there is still hope in the world. Hope, a shining beacon that allows love, kindness, and happiness to pour through to the world. Let us, all together, combine our hope, our hope for a better future, and work toward all of our success. Let us be in unity as we venture into the great unknown. ~ Avina Celeste

Will you please refrain from shining your high beams at my retinas. You've blinded me. ~ Penny Reid

I think history would say that medical research has, throughout many changes of parties, remained as one of the shining lights of bipartisan agreement, that people are concerned about health for themselves, for their families, for their constituents. ~ Francis Collins

Chile, it's Friday! The sun is shining, money is circulating & multiplying, y'all live & live to the fullest. No drama, no time for that extra anyway. Head up, all smiles - LK ~ LaNina King

There's a big moon shining on the yard, chalking our way onto the lane and along the road. Kinsella takes my hand in his.
As soon as he takes it, I realise my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won't have to feel this.
It's a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be.
He takes small steps so we can walk in time. I think about the woman in the cottage, of how she walked and spoke, and conclude that there are huge differences between people. ~ Claire Keegan

A beacon of light shining in a dark tunnel leads even the blind to safety ~ Wogu Donald

Love is like a shining light in the darkness, closing eyes to pretend you didn't see it will not wash it away. ~ Jean Nshimiyimana

The trout that seem to stick in my memory the finest aren't the big ones, and maybe it's because I have't visited all the corners of the globe, but my most unforgettable trout all lived close to home. In fact, when I take out my pouch of trout memories and spill them all on the table, it seems that the smaller ones shine the brightest. ~ William G. Tapply

At around 8 pm we heard the sound of sirens. As the sound drew nearer and nearer, we caught sight of a fire truck. As it reached the hotel, the truck pulled into the parking lot with emergency lights shining and horns blasting. It came to a stop in front of our congregation. We didn't see a fire or any other emergency in the immediate vicinity, so this was quite unexpected. Perhaps our smell had been reported as some kind of toxic leak or spill? Firemen began to pour out of the truck carrying different trays covered in foil. I could hardly believe my eyes. The local Franklin Fire Department had brought us all a spaghetti and meatball dinner! They also brought salad and pudding for desert. This was an example of trail magic at its finest. ~ Kyle Rohrig

The sunken ships were visible even on the bottom, for it seemed as if they had sunk along with their own space and time, so that they were still illumined by the same eleven o'clock sun that was shining on Saturday, June 9, when they went down. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I glanced over his shoulder to get a look at his latest drawing. A wolf and a coyote stood side by side beneath a dual sky, sun and moon shining at the same time.

"They're brothers," Rafael said. He laid his charcoal on the grass. "Wolf is wise and judicious. Coyote's a trickster. They're the two faces of God. Everything in the world is dual-natured. Even God isn't all good or all bad."

He told me about how the sun used to be married to the moon before they quarreled and parted ways, leaving the sun to rule the world at day and the moon at night. He told me how the Wolf had sewn us all out of seeds and put us in a cloth bag to keep us safe, but the Coyote had clawed the bag open and everyone had spilled out, landing and taking root in different parts of the world. He told me about the girl with Two Faces, one half of her face devastatingly beautiful, the other half impossibly ugly, and the man who lover her anyway. He told me about the days when death lacked permanence and ten different generations lived together beneath the same stars.

He talked, as he always talked, without any real purpose, clearing his head of the cluttering thoughts that had gathered and built up until he could pour them into me. ~ Rose Christo

Lost in his thoughts he looked out from his shop at the shining loveliness of that first day of March. Opposite him, a little to the side, stood the eternal bridge, everlastingly the same; through its white arches could be seen the green, sparkling, tumultuous waters of the Drina, so that they seemed like some strange diadem in two colours which sparkled in the sun. ~ Ivo Andric

Women love firefighters so much because it's like a knight in shining armor kind of thing. ~ Taylor Kinney

The dead appear to us in dreams because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star ... ~ Donna Tartt

If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?"

"Could we find a map of someplace perfect?"

"Like paradise?" I asked, teasing.

"Here? No." He stared upward, the first stars shining in his eyes. "A better place. Someplace where nothing goes wrong. There must be a myth like that somewhere."

I bit my lip; my shoulders fell. "Navigation involves the beliefs of the Navigator and the mapmaker. And I don't think I've ever met anyone who truly believes in a world without suffering. ~ Heidi Heilig

This myth he'd made out of intricate movements and imagination, out of moonlight and love, out of prayers older than Adam, and gray cliffs and crimson shadows, laments and rivers of martyrs - what had it come to at last? When the waves receded, the shores of Time would spread out there clean, empty, shining with infinite grains of memory and little else. ~ Frank Herbert