What Light Quotes

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Oh Blimey O'Reilly's pantyhose...what is the point of Shakespeare? I know he is a genius and so on, but he does rave on.
What light doth through yonder window break?
It's the bloody moon, for God's sake, Will, get a grip!! ~ Louise Rennison

Ah! poetry makes life what light and music do the stage - strip the one of the false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and what is there real in either to live or care for? ~ Charles Dickens

Cats too, with what silent stealthiness, with what light steps do they creep up to a bird! ~ Pliny The Elder

Who knows what light housework means? One nun's light could be another nun's penal servitude. ~ Maeve Binchy

The Work is something living in our hearts and minds. Follow the path, see what changes take place within you, and what light begins to dawn in you. ~ Maurice Nicoll

Shakespeare is just some bloke who keeps ranting "what light trough yonder window breaks" its the moon for god sakes! ~ Louise Rennison

I wanted to paint with shadows and capture what light would look like in clothes. ~ Christian Cota

I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.
If we suppose a large family of children, who, on any particular day, or particular circumstance, made it a custom to present to their parents some token of their affection and gratitude, each of them would make a different offering, and most probably in a different manner. Some would pay their congratulations in themes of verse and prose, by some little devices, as their genius dictated, or according to what they thought would please; and, perhaps, the least of all, not able to do any of those things, would ramble into the garden, or the field, and gather what it thought the prettiest flower it could find, though, perhaps, it might be but a simple weed. The parent would be more gratified by such a variety, than if the whole of them had acted on a concerted plan, and each had made exactly the same offering. This would have the cold appearance of contrivance, or the harsh one of control. But of all unwelcome things, nothing could more afflict the parent than to know, that the whole of them had afterwards gotten together by the ears, boys and girls, fighting, scratching, reviling, and abusing each other about which was the best or the worst present.
Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable? For my own part, I am fully satisfied that wha ~ Thomas Paine

Love, is it morning risen or night deceased
That makes the mirth of this triumphant east?
Is it bliss given or bitterness put by
That makes most glad men's hearts at love's high feast?
Grief smiles, joy weeps, that day should live and die.

"Is it with soul's thirst or with body's drouth
That summer yearns out sunward to the south,
With all the flowers that when thy birth drew nigh
Were molten in one rose to make thy mouth?
O love, what care though day should live and die?

"Is the sun glad of all love on earth,
The spirit and sense and work of things and worth?
Is the moon sad because the month must fly
And bring her death that can but bring back birth?
For all these things as day must live and die.

"Love, is it day that makes thee thy delight
Or thou that seest day made out of thy light?
Love, as the sun and sea are thou and I,
Sea without sun dark, sun without sea bright;
The sun is one though day should live and die.

"O which is elder, night or light, who knows?
And life or love, which first of these twain grows?
For life is born of love to wail and cry,
And love is born of life to heal his woes,
And light of night, that day should live and die.

"O sun of heaven above the wordly sea,
O very love, what light is this of thee!
My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,
But all thy light is shed through all of me ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

If you live in the dark long enough, you start to forget what light looks like. ~ Rachel Vincent

For darkness restores what light cannot repair. ~ Joseph Brodsky

He saw nature - he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of the field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam - of the landscape before us; of the weather round us and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Never make the negative the object of your study, because the negative is not there. You can go on and you will never arrive anywhere. Try to understand what light is, not darkness. Try to understand what life is, not death. Try to understand what love is, not hate.
If you go into hate you will never understand it, because hate is only the absence of love. So is darkness the absence of light. ~ Osho

But, imagining Scott's nights here, I populated the emptiness. This had been one of his places and some small part of his spirit had been left here. Holding my own brief séance for my brother, I conjured vivid faces and loud nights. I saw that smile of his, sudden as a sunray, when he loved what you were saying. I saw the strained expression when he felt you must agree with him and couldn't get you to see that. I caught the way the laughter would light up his eyes when he was trying to suppress it. I heard the laughing when it broke. He must have had some nights here. He had lived with such intensity. The thought was my funeral for him. Who needed possessions and career and official achievements? Life was only in the living of it. How you act and what you are and what you do and how you be were the only substance. They didn't last either. But while you were here, they made what light there was – the wick that threads the candle-grease of time. His light was out but here I felt I could almost smell the smoke still drifting from its snuffing. ~ William McIlvanney

Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is. ~ Samuel Johnson

Einstein was remarkable for his powers of concentration; he could work uninterruptedly for hours and even days on the same problem. Some of the topics that interested him remained on his mind for decades. For relaxation he turned to music and to sailing, but often his work would continue during these moments as well; he usually had a notebook in his pocket so that he could jot down any idea that came to him. Once, after the theory of relativity had been put forth, he confessed to his colleague Wolfgang Pauli, "For the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is." It is perhaps not entirely an accident that a focus on light is also the first visual act of the newborn child. ~ Howard Gardner

Mr. Rochester continued to be blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near -- that knit us so very close; for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw nature -- he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of the field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam -- of the landscape before us; of the weather around us -- and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary conducting him where he wished to go; of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad -- because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance; he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes. ~ Charlotte Bronte

There is a power now slumbering within us, which is awakened would do to evil what light does to darkness. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Contrast is important in life. We understand what light is because we can compare it with what we know is dark. Sweet is made sweeter after we eat something bitter. It's the very same with sadness. And it's important to experience sadness, to embrace it in order to truly know happiness. I was just a flat line until he came along. And maybe now I'm hurting. But isn't that what love is supposed to do? Make you feel, make you brave, make you look at yourself more carefully? ~ Tarryn Fisher

It may be that the night will close over us in the end, but I believe that morning will come again. Morning always grows out of the darkness, though maybe not for the people who saw the sun go down. We are the Lantern Bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind. ~ Rosemary Sutcliff

It's a slow process, but it is scary, because if someone can control your energy sources, they can control you. We are already being told what light bulbs we can and cannot use ... through legislation. We are being forced to fund research into alternative energies sources that are inefficient, and that cause the price of food, energy, and everything else to rise ... through legislation ... rather than allow free enterprise to allocate funds to those energy sources that will survive through good old American innovation! ~ Mike Thompson

Only a blind man can easily define what light is. When you do not know, you are bold. Ignorance is always bold; knowledge hesitates. And the more you know, the more you feel that the ground underneath is dissolving. The more you know, the more you feel how ignorant you are. ~ Osho

a belief is only really worthwhile if you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise. If your retina ended up in the same state regardless of what light entered it, you would be blind . ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

To die, is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her,
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon;
She is my essence, and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive. ~ William Shakespeare

But the Dark cannot claim what Light does not surrender. ~ C.L. Wilson

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. ~ William Shakespeare

What light is to the outer physical world intellect is to the inner world of consciousness. For intellect is related to the will, and thus also to the organism which is nothing other than will regarded objectively, in the approximate same way as light is to a combustible body and the oxygen in combination with which it ignites. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

But soft,what light yonder window breaks... ~ William Shakespeare

What light through yonder window breaks? ~ William Shakespeare

What light shines at night! He never knew. Light will blind him. ~ Anthony Doerr

When summer and winter in autumn divide
The sun will uncover a secret inside.
Should winter from summer irrevocably part
The whole of the book will fall quickly apart.
Yet if the seasons join hands together
The order of things will last forever.
These are the words of Endymion spring.
Bring only the insight the Inside brings.

The child may see what the man does not
A future time which time forgot:
Books yet to be and books already written
Within these pages lie dormant and hidden.
Yet darkness seeks what light reveals
A shadow grows: these truths conceal.
These are my words, Endymion spring.
Bring only the insight the Inside brings.

The silence will end-the sum approaches
Mark my word-the shadow encroaches.
The present had passed-the past has gone
The future will come-once Two become One.
The sun must look the shadow in the eye
Then forfeit the book lest one half die.
The lesion of darkness cannot be healed
Until, with Child's Blood, the whole is sealed.
These are the words of Endymion spring.
Bring only the insight the Inside brings. ~ Matthew Skelton

What an experiment will give, to put a writer in the dark, ask her to stretch a character of the human kind with no physical characteristics attached? Will this character emerge with no prejudice in kind or one of a new kind, an organism cultured in the dark to what light may not reflect? Humanity absorbed or rudely deflected? ~ Dew Platt

Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill. ~ May Sarton

Sierra, it's Christmastime. Put a stupid mistletoe over his head and kiss him already! ~ Jay Asher

If you can see only what light reveals and hear only what sound announces, then in truth you do not see nor do you hear. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Ideas are to literature what light is to painting. ~ Paul Bourget

But still I was curious to know what sort of an explanation she would have given me - or would give now, if I pressed her for it - how much she would confess, and how she would endeavour to excuse herself. I longed to know what to despise, and what to admire in her; how much to pity, and how much to hate; - and, what was more, I would know. I would see her once more, and fairly satisfy myself in what light to regard her, before we parted. Lost to me she was, for ever, of course; but still I could not bear to think that we had parted, for the last time, with so much unkindness and misery on both sides. That last look of hers had sunk into my heart; I could not forget it. But what a fool I was! Had she not deceived me, injured me - blighted my happiness for life? 'Well, I'll see her, however,' was my concluding resolve, 'but not to-day: to-day and to-night she may think upon her sins, and be as miserable as she will: to-morrow I will see her once again, and know something more about her. The interview may be serviceable to her, or it may not. At any rate, it will give a breath of excitement to the life she has doomed to stagnation, and may calm with certainty some agitating thoughts. ~ Anne Bronte

People think what they want. That's what I've had to accept," he says. "I can fight it, but that's exhausting. I can feel hurt about it, but that's torture. Or I can decide it's their loss. ~ Jay Asher

My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Instead of hiding your loneliness, bring it into the light. Honor it. Treat it. Heal it. You'll find that it returns the favor. ~ Martha Beck

After a while, didn't you crave flaws? Love and lust and misunderstandings, and maybe even a little violence to liven things up? Didn't light need shade? Didn't it? Maybe it didn't. Maybe I was missing the point. ~ Matt Haig

Sexually active? Sexually active? Patrick and I hadn't even learned the fine points of kissing yet!
I marched on down. 'For your information,' I said from the doorway, as both Dad and Lester jerked to attention, 'I am about as sexually active as a bag of spinach, and if you want to keep me on the porch and not out in the park somewhere behind the bushes, you'll keep the stupid porch light off when I come home with a boy. ~ Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

The yellow moon dreamily
tipping buttons of light
down among the leaves. Marimba,
marimba - from beyond the
black street.
Somebody dancing,
somebody
getting the hell
outta here. Shadows of cats
weave round the treetrunks,
the exposed knotty roots.
("Scenes from the Life of the Peppertrees") ~ Denise Levertov

If only men were like New York taxi-cabs and had a light that they can switch on when they're interested and off when they're not available. Then you'd know exactly where you were and you wouldn't have to worry about getting it wrong and being horribly embarrassed.
Lucy ~ Alexandra Potter

I drove on, and between the north and southbound lanes a construction crew worked under daylight-bright industrial lamps. I saw them through a gauzy fog of dust and strong light...they wore blood-red vests and hardhats and massive goggles, and as the road sank I saw that the workers were bone thin, with skeletal jaws and long teeth. They labored on platforms over gaping holes in the earth, and among the men, piled atop rickety pallets, lolled babies, piles of them, in ashy cerements. I could not tell whether the crew was excavating or burying them. ~ Matthew M. Bartlett

I'm the soft light compared to their ultraviolet. ~ Calla Devlin

His green-flecked brown eyes twinkle, and we laugh together, easy and light. He opens the door for me, and I say goodbye, floating over to where my family waits in our Winnebago. And I can't tell you if my feet actually touch the ground, because at this very moment, this Bird, well, she flies. ~ Alecia Whitaker

Remember I'm an Empath before you lie to me. - Lily Hunt ~ Jennifer DeLucy

The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,
artoosoq',
and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and the like phenomena, he said that his "folks" sometimes saw fires passing along at various heights, even as high as the trees, and making a noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most startling and unimagined phenomena, witnessed by "his folks"; they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets to us. ~ Henry David Thoreau

You see, my love. As you've always said, after the rain-"
Sun."
After the darkness-"
Light."
And after the illness-"
Health."
Exactly," said the Tsar. "We mustn't give up faith. ~ Robert Alexander

fluorescent bulbs were the result of a multimillion-dollar program specially engineered to offer the most hopeless light possible. ~ Marcus Sakey

God said, 'Let there be light.'

Here's a paraphrase:

Let there be electromagnetic radiation with varying wavelengths traveling at 186,282 miles per second. Let there be radiowaves, microwaves, and X-rays. Let there be photosynthesis and fiber optics. Let there be LASIK surgery, satellite communication, and suntans. Oh, and let there be rainbows after rainstorms.

'Let there be light.'

These are God's first recorded words.

This is God's first recorded miracle.

Light is the source of vision; without it we can't see a thing. Light is the key to technology; it's how we can talk to someone halfway around the world without so much as a second's delay because light can circle the globe seven and a half times a second. Light is the first link in the food chain; no photosynthesis equals no food. Light is the basis of health; the absence of light causes everything from vitamin D deficiency to depression. Light is the origin of energy; in Einstein's equation E = MC squared, energy (E) is defined as mass (M) times the speed of light (C) squared. The speed of light is the constant. And light is the measuring stick for space-time; a meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Light is the alpha and omega of everything, and that includes you. ~ Mark Batterson

Her mind was still tiptoeing along the boundary of consciousness, in that state of semi-waking that spins threads between dream and real, and for a moment she felt herself to be a girl who has come down off a porch to confront a great darkness with a tiny light. ~ Laini Taylor

Don't be ridiculous," Mg. Aviosky assured her as Magicians Katter and Hughes studied Mg. Thane lying on the floor by the light of four candles. "The only one who can manipulate Emery Thane's future is Emery Thane himself. ~ Charlie N. Holmberg

The room was full of the kind of light you got when you woke up on a winter's morning and knew, by the light, that it had snowed. It was a light without shadows. He ~ Terry Pratchett

There is a Hand to turn the time,
Though thy Glass today be run,
Till the Light hath brought the Towers low
Find the last poor Preterite one ...
Till the Riders sleep by ev'ry road,
All through our crippl'd Zone,
With a face in ev'ry Mountainside
And a Soul in ev'ry stone
Now Everybody - ~ Thomas Pynchon

If light can come out of darkness, then alone can love emerge from hatred. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

There is a great counterfeiter who adapts himself to every culture, even deceiving true believers at times. He doesn't charge on the scene clothed in red and wearing a hideous mask but charms his way as an "angel of light." This is how Satan operates. ~ Billy Graham

A Faint Music by Robert Hass

Maybe you need to write a poem about grace.

When everything broken is broken,
and everything dead is dead,
and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt,
and the heroine has studied her face and its defects
remorselessly, and the pain they thought might,
as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves
has lost its novelty and not released them,
and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly,
watching the others go about their days -
likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears -
that self-love is the one weedy stalk
of every human blossoming, and understood,
therefore, why they had been, all their lives,
in such a fury to defend it, and that no one -
except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool
of poverty and silence - can escape this violent, automatic
life's companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light,
faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears.

As in the story a friend told once about the time
he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him.
Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash.
He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge,
the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon.
And in the salt air he thought about the word "seafood,"
that there was something faintly ridiculous about it.
No one said "landfood." He thought it was degra ~ Robert Hass

Light skin gives me such privileges that my complaints are not worthy. I'm not "positive" enough. Not "black" enough. I'm not a "real" black person. Worst of all are the terrible choices - the possibility of losing connections to those I love, betraying them, those who have done terrible things but at the same time have had to survive within the context of racism. Whose side am I on? ~ Toi Derricotte

Let men do their duty and the women will be such wonders; the female lives from the light of the male: see a male's female dependants, you know the man. ~ William Blake

I try my best to surround myself with people who're smarter than I'm; individuals who add values; who stretch me; optimistic & full of light ~ Assegid Habtewold

You might make people uncomfortable,
even those you love them most and it will hurt.
The masses will likely misunderstand you and as a result they will judge you and even lash out at you and you may have to walk alone sometimes.
Your joy, your freedom and your magic will infuriate those who feel trapped in a life they secretly hate.
When your truth threatens someones belief system, they will come at you like a storm and you will have to stand and let them roar all around you.
If you're creating change, the people benefiting from the current system will likely try to stop you. Be brave. Stand. Hold space for change.
Keep writing. Keep dancing. Keep singing. Keep shining your light on the world.
We need your beauty and your truth.
We need you- the real you! ~ Brooke Hampton

I think hawking is the nearest thing to flying in this world. There you sit high up and poised light as air, the horse swift beneath you. You unhood your bird, let the jesses go and watch your falcon, its bells a-jingle, like some wild spirit take the air ... and your own spirit goes with it. ~ Hilda Lewis

Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions. ~ Samuel Johnson

Lord ... my goal is not to live forever but to live in thy favor forever. May you not only always bless me and my children in friendship & favor but may you also bless all our generations to come.
May we always walk in your light and do our best to bring praise to your holy name.
Amen. ~ Timothy Pina

Among the Dagara, darkness is sacred. It is forbidden to illuminate it, for light scares the Spirit away ... . The one exception to this rule is the bonfire. ~ Malidoma Patrice Some

Beyond those to another hall, with four doors--not woven doors, but real colorwood ones--redwood, bluewood, goldwood, greenwood--beautifully carved and obviously ancient.
The servants opened one and bowed me into a round-walled room that meant we were in a tower; windows on three sides looked out over the valley. The room was flooded with light, so much that I was dazzled for a moment and had to blink. Shading my eyes, I had a swift impression of a finely carved and gilded redwood table surrounded by blue satin cushions. Then I saw that the room was occupied.
Standing between two of the windows, almost hidden by slanting rays of sun, was a tall figure with pale blond hair.
The Marquis was looking down at the valley, hands clasped behind him. At the sound of the door closing behind me he looked up and came forward, and for a moment was a silhouette in the strong sunlight.
I stood with my back to the door. We were alone.
"Welcome to Renselaeus, Lady Meliara." And when I did not answer, he pointed to a side table. "Would you like anything to drink? To eat?"
"Why am I here?" I asked in a surly voice, suddenly and acutely aware of how ridiculous I must look dressed in his livery. "You may as well get the threats out at once. All this politeness seems about as false as…" As a courtier's word, I thought, but speech wouldn't come and I just shook my head.
He returned no immediate answer; instead seemed absorbed in pouring wine from a fine silver dec ~ Sherwood Smith

To Selene (Moon)

Hear, Goddess queen, diffusing silver light, bull-horn'd and wand'ring thro' the gloom of Night.
With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide Night's torch extending, thro' the heav'ns you ride:
Female and Male with borrow'd rays you shine, and now full-orb'd, now tending to decline.
Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon [Mene], whose amber orb makes Night's reflected noon:
Lover of horses, splendid, queen of Night, all-seeing pow'r bedeck'd with starry light.
Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife, in peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:
Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend, who giv'st to Nature's works their destin'd end.
Queen of the stars, all-wife Diana hail! Deck'd with a graceful robe and shining veil;
Come, blessed Goddess, prudent, starry, bright, come moony-lamp with chaste and splendid light,
Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays, and pleas'd accept thy suppliant's mystic praise. ~ Orpheus

It's easy to pretend 'to be fierce and fearless because living your truth takes real courage. Real fearless and fierce women admit mistakes and they work to correct them. We stand up and we use our voices for things other than self promotion. We don't stand by and let racism and sexism and homophobia run rapid on our watch. Real fearless and fierce women complement other women and we recognize and embrace that their shine in no way diminishes our light and that it actually makes our light shine brighter. ~ Gabrielle Union

Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye! When I behold thee, though my light be dim, Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne, And minds the covenant between all and One. ~ Henry Vaughan

It was not pitch-black. It was the kind of cloudy night where the clouds seem to gather up light from distant streetlights and houses below, and throw it back at the earth. ~ Neil Gaiman