Light Quotes - Page 20

• We must live by the light of our own self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason.

  Iris Murdoch

  Self, Secret, Satisfaction

  Iris Murdoch (1999). “A Severed Head, The Black Prince, The Sea, The Sea”

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• Imagination comes from yourself and can deceive you, but vision is a gift from outside yourself - like light striking on your closed eyelids and lifting them to see what's really there.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Imagination, Vision, Deceiving

  Elizabeth Goudge (1948). “Pilgrim's Inn”

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• A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.

  Isaac Watts

  Believe, Dark, Men

  Isaac Watts, Joseph Emerson (1855). “The Improvement of the Mind”, p.29

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• The secret heart is fair devotion's temple; there the saint, even on that living altar, lights the flame of purest sacrifice, which burns unseen, not unaccepted.

  Hannah More

  Heart, Sacrifice, Flames

  Hannah More (1827). “Sacred Drams: The Search After Happiness, A. Other Poems”, p.104

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• Silence is the garment of light.

  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

  Silence, Garments, Silence Is

  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1991). “The Islands of Italy: Sicily, Sardinia, and the Aeolian Islands”, Houghton Mifflin

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• He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain all the while an exceedingly poor creature; for riches are no proof whatever of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glow-worm's light reveals the grub.

  Samuel Smiles

  Men, Attention, Glitter

  Samuel Smiles (1871). “Self-help: With Illustrations of Characters, Conduct, and Perseverance”, p.341

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• Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
  And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.

  Abraham Cowley

  Book, Sleep, Night

  Abraham Cowley, Thomas Sprat (1710). “The works of Mr. Abraham Cowley ...: Consisting of those which were formerly printed; and those which he design'd for the press, publish'd out of the author's original copies. With The cutter of Coleman-street ...”, p.181

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• It does not try to reach down to the level of inferior classes; it does not try to win them for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made judgments and watchwords of its own. It seeks to away with classes, to make the best that has been taught and known in the world current everywhere, to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely--nourished, and not bound by them.

  Matthew Arnold

  Winning, Men, Class

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• O sleep, we are beholden to thee, sleep;
  Thou bearest angels to us in the night,
  Saints out of heaven with palms.
  Seen by thy light
  Sorrow is some old tale that goeth not deep;
  Love is a pouting child.

  Jean Ingelow

  Children, Angel, Sleep

  Jean Ingelow (1874). “The Poetical Works of Jean Ingelow”, p.244

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• Light hearts seldom keep company with heavy coffers.

  Fanny Fern

  Money, Heart, Wealth

  Fanny Fern (1854). “Fern leaves from Fanny's port-folio”, p.91

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• I can't paint. I can't write. I can't sing. But I can decorate and run a house, and light it, and heat it, and have it like a living thing.

  Elsie de Wolfe

  Running, Writing, House

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• The joy of joys is the person of light but unmalicious humor.

  Emily Post

  Humor, Joy, Persons

  Emily Post (2007). “Etiquette: In Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home”, p.51, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

  Edward Snowden

  Nsa, Justice, World

  "'My asylee status now formal': Snowden declares 'acceptance' of all offers of asylum". www.rt.com. July 12, 2013.

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• The clouds are scudding across the moon,
  A misty light is on the sea;
  The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune,
  And the foam is flying free.

  Bayard Taylor

  Moon, Clouds, Wind

  Bayard Taylor (1866). “The Poems”, p.366

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• Charm is an odorless perfume, which cannot be anchored in the chemists' test tube. It is a permeation, a radiation. It emanates from the climate of a warm human spirit, which not only contains light, but gives it off.

  Fannie Hurst

  Giving, Radiation, Tests

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• Genius! thou gift of Heav'n! thou Light divine!
  Amid what dangers art thou doom'd to shine!
  Oft will the body's weakness check thy force,
  Oft damp thy Vigour, and impede thy course;
  And trembling nerves compel thee to restrain
  Thy noble efforts, to contend with pain;
  Or Want (sad guest!) will in thy presence come,
  And breathe around her melancholy gloom:
  To Life's low cares will thy proud thought confine,
  And make her sufferings, her impatience, thine.

  George Crabbe

  Art, Pain, Shining

  George Crabbe (1812). “Tales”, p.191

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• Shut your eyes and you will know what I mean by thought entombed in darkness. Light comes through the senses, and not only through the sense of sight. When you see without feeling, you are still partly blind; you lack the inner light that brings awareness. Awareness requires the interplay of every faculty, the use of your entire being as an eye.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Mean, Eye, Sight

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• The scent organ was playing a delightfully refreshing Herbal Capriccio - rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender, of rosemary, basil, myrtle, tarragon; a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris; and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar and newmown hay (with occasional subtle touches of discord - a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig's dung) back to the simple aromatics with which the piece began. The final blast of thyme died away; there was a round of applause; the lights went up.

  Aldous Huxley

  Simple, Keys, Pigs

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

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• I like that gathering moment where the music is about to begin, that moment right there. It's like jumping out of an airplane. It's that moment when the lights go out and then you're in it.

  Stephan Jenkins

  Airplane, Jumping, Gathering

  "Get Back to That Place: Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins Talks Touring Again and Why He Adores Tove Lo". Interview with Kelli Bender, people.com. June 30, 2015.

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• Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and ... such illumination may well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time-span that was given them on earth.

  Hannah Arendt

  Hero, Men, Illumination

  Hannah Arendt (1970). “Men in Dark Times”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I think true love is never blind, / But rather brings an added light; / An inner vision quick to find / The beauties hid from common sight.

  Phoebe Cary

  Love Is, Thinking, Sight

  Phoebe Cary (1868). “Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love”, p.37

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• The speckled sky is dim with snow,
  The light flakes falter and fall slow;
  Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
  Silently drops a silvery veil; And all the valley is shut in
  By flickering curtains gray and thin.

  John Townsend Trowbridge

  Fall, Sky, Snow

  John Townsend Trowbridge (1871). “Vagabonds: And Other Poems”, p.42

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• I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the yes. I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us.

  Richard Avedon

  White, Narrative, Seduction

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• I've got to get the ultimate in composition today. or I've got to get the ultimate in light, I'll stay here until it appears. I was not making any demands. I went purely to see what would come, what might be there. I didn't have to be archaeologist or historian or tourist, I just needed to be available.

  Paul Caponigro

  Tourists, Demand, Might

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• Lucy took a single plain donut from the bag and held it for me to take a bite. Tender and light and still warm from the frying. Not too sugary.

  Robert Crais

  Food, Cooking, Bags

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