Light Quotes

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly bigger man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

Gen. Peyton C. March

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

Chinese Prove

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

Jessamyn West

I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind... At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme, I detect the bony, blue - Fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves.

Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947

To Robert Fulton What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense.

Napoleon I

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality, 1876

When you look up at the sky, you have a feeling of unity, which delights you and makes you giddy.

Ferdinand Hodle

During these periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight.

Fritjof Capra

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - Light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

John Constable

The task is overwhelming, and the chance is slight. We must take the chance or die.

Robert Hutchins

There are two ways of spreading light to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

Edith Wharton

Washington is the only place where sound travels faster than light.

C. V. R. Thompson

And now, like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career, and just fade away... an old soldier who tried to do his duty, as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good - Bye.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Farewell address, quoted on "We Interrupt This Broadcast" CD - ROM

It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

Hubert Humphrey

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The truth, as the light, makes blind.

Albert Camus

What a glorious garden of wonders the lights of Broadway would be to anyone lucky enough to be unable to read.

G. K. Chesterton

The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

J. Krishnamurti

Man is his own star and the soul that can render an honest and perfect man commands all light, all influence, all fate.

John Fletcher, 1647

Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.

William Safire

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - It gives a lovely light.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, "A Few Figs from Thistles", 1920

But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self - Righteousness - - Each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked - - Each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity.

Herbert Butterfield

To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light.

Coventry Patmore

Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.

Maurice Chevalie

I feel the happiest when I can light my American cigarettes with Soviet matches.

Mohammed Daud Khan

To all, to each, a fair good night, And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

Sir Walter Scott

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Carl Jung, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", 1962

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

During these periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight.

Fritjof Capra, physicist

The Lord is my light, and my salvation whom shall I fea.

Psalm 27

By always thinking unto them. I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open little by little into the full light.

Sir Issac Newton, On how he made discoveries

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.

Carl Jung

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils. The thing is to supply light and not heat.

Woodrow Wilson

It is light grief that can take counsel.

Anonymous