Light Quotes

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

Life is like and ever - Shifting kaleidoscope - A slight change, and all patterns alter.

Sharon Salzberg

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

Ferdinand Hodle

He who has great power should use it lightly.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.

Ghandi, 1931

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

Dbjanski

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

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

Alas my love you do me wrong, To cast me of discurteously And I have loved you so long, Delighting in your company.

Anonymous

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

Carl Gustav Jung

You conquer every hardness with your eyes, as you do likewise every light; so if it can happen that one can die of joy, now would be the time.

Michelangelo, Poem Fragment

More light! Give me more light!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You teach your daugthers the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Samuel Johnson

Freedom, then, lies only in our innate human capacity to choose between different sorts of bondage, bondage to desire or self esteem, or bondage to the light that lightens all our lives.

Sri Madhava

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.

Charles Robert Darwin

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

Dorothy Parker, book review

The teacher is like the candle which lights others in consuming itself.

Giovanni Ruffini

I installed a skylight in my apartment. The people who live above me are furious!

Steven Wright, Standup Comedy Routine

What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty.

Edmund Spense

Roots creep under the ground to make a firm foundation. Shoots seems new and small, but to reach the light they can break through brick walls.

Jane Goodall

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

Christopher Columbus

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

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

Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante

Far or forgot to me is nearShadow and sunlight are the sameThe vanished gods to me appearAnd one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me outWhen me they fly, I am the wingsI am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come.

Rabindranath Tagore

To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth out not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration. The only distinctions which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, of incorruptible integrity, of usefulness, of cultivated intellect, of fidelity in seeking the truth.

William Ellery Channing