Light

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And God said: "Let there be light," and there was light. ~ Genesis
Genius is not so much a light as it is a constant awareness of the surrounding gloom. ~ Stanisław Lem
Light upon light, God guideth unto His light whome he will. And God speaketh to mankind in allegories, for God is knower of all things. ~ Quran

Light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength that is visible to the eye (visible light) or, in a technical or scientific context, the word is sometimes used to mean electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths. The elementary particle that defines light is the photon.

The sensory perception of light plays a central role in Spirituality, and the presence of light as opposed to its absence (darkness) is a common Western metaphor of good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, and similar concepts.

Contents

Quotes [edit]

Alphabetized by author
  • Corruption springs from light: 'tis one same power
    Creates, preserves, destroys; matter whereon
    It works, on e'er self-transmutative form,
    Common to now the living, now the dead.
  • The light in the world comes principally from two sources,—the sun, and the student's lamp.
  • For I light my candle from their torches.
    • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III. Sect, II. Memb. 5. Subsec. 1.
  • The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.
  • A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
  • Light (God's eldest daughter!).
    • Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Prophane State (1642), Book III. Of Building.
  • Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear, like owls and bats, before the light of day.
    • James A. Garfield, as quoted in General Garfield as a Statesman and Orator (1881) edited by the Republican Party National Committee, p. 59.
  • And God said: "Let there be light," and there was light.
  • Master, Master of Light,
    Whose eye dwells in the seeking fingers of the blind,
    You are still despised and mocked,
    A man too weak and infirm to be God,
    A God too much man to call forth adoration.
    • Khalil Gibran, in Jesus, The Son of Man (1928), "A Man From Lebanon: Nineteen Centuries Afterward".
  • Our faith is a light by nature coming of our endless Day, that is our Father, God. In which light our Mother, Christ, and our good Lord, the Holy Ghost, leadeth us in this passing life. This light is measured discreetly, needfully standing to us in the night. The light is cause of our life; the night is cause of our pain and of all our woe: in which we earn meed and thanks of God. For we, with mercy and grace, steadfastly know and believe our light, going therein wisely and mightily.
  • Genius is not so much a light as it is a constant awareness of the surrounding gloom.
    • Stanisław Lem, in His Master's Voice (1968) as translated by Michael Kandel (1983)
  • An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
  • With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light.
  • He that has light within his own clear breast
    May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;
    But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
    Benighted walks under the mid-day sun.
  • Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven firstborn!
    Or of th' eternal co-eternal beam,
    May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light
    And never but in unapproached light
    Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
    Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
  • And from her native east,
    To journey through the aery gloom began,
    Spher'd in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
    Was not.
  • There swift return
    Diurnal, merely to officiate light
    Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.
  • And this I know; whether the one True Light
    Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,
    One flash of it within the Tavern caught
    Better than in the temple lost outright.
  • In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.
  • God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass.The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light, God guideth unto His light whome he will. And God speaketh to mankind in allegories, for God is knower of all things.
  • In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
    • Aaron Rose, quoted in The Reader's Digest Vol. 152 (1998), p. 185, also in Live in the Light : A Journal of Self-Enlightenment (2003) by Mary Engelbreit
  • Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:
    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes
  • There are two kinds of light — the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations [edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 455-57.
  • Now that the sun is gleaming bright,
    Implore we, bending low,
    That He, the Uncreated Light,
    May guide us as we go.
    • Attributed to Adam de Saint Victor. Old Latin Hymn said to have been sung at the death-bed of William the Conqueror.
  • Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray,
    By passion driven;
    But yet the light that led astray,
    Was light from Heaven.
  • Hinc lucem et pocula sacra.
    • Hence light and the sacred vessels.
    • Motto of Cambridge University.
  • Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.
  • I shall light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out.
    • II Esdras, XIV. 25.
  • And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
    • Genesis. I. 3.
  • Against the darkness outer
    God's light his likeness takes,
    And he from the mighty doubter
    The great believer makes.
  • Mehr Licht!
    • More light!
    • Said to be the last words of Goethe.
  • Wo viel Licht is, ist starker Schatten.
  • Blasted with excess of light.
  • Like our dawn, merely a sob of light.
  • The true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
    • John. I. 9.
  • He was a burning and a shining light
    • John. V. 35.
  • Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
    • John, XII. 35.
  • The prayer of Ajax was for light;
    Through all that dark and desperate fight,
    The blackness of that noonday night.
  • Fra l' ombre un lampo solo
    Basta al nocchier fugace
    Che già ritrova il polo,
    Già riconosce il mar.
    • In the dark a glimmering light is often sufficient for the pilot to find the polar star and to fix his course.
    • Metastasio, Achille, 1, 6.
  • Where glowing embers through the room
    Teach light to counterfeit a gloom.
  • But let my due feet never fail
    To walk the studious cloisters pale,
    And love the high embowed roof,
    With antique pillars massy proof,
    And storied windows richly dight;
    Casting a dim religious light.
  • Where art thou, beam of light? Hunters from the mossy rock, saw ye the blue-eyed fair?
  • Ex luce lucellum.
    • Out of light a little profit.
    • William Pitt's description of the Window Tax. Also suggested by Robert Lowe, Chancellor, as a motto for matchboxes, when the British Government introduced a match tax, 1871.
  • Those having lamp will pass them on to others.
  • Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
    God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.
  • Nur der Gewissenswurm schwärmt mit der Eule. Sünder und böse Geister scheun das Licht.
    • Only the worm of conscience consorts with the owl. Sinners and evil spirits shun the light.
    • Friedrich Schiller, Liebe und Cabale, V. I.
  • But it is not necessary to light a candle to the sun.
  • 'Twas a light that made
    Darkness itself appear
    A thing of comfort.
  • An unreflected light did never yet
    Dazzle the vision feminine.
    • Sir Henry Taylor, Philip Van Artevelde, Part I, Act I, scene 5, line 88.
  • Thy prayer was "Light—more Light"—while Time shall last
    Thou sawest a glory growing on the night,
    But not the shadows which that light would cast,
    Till shadows vanish in the Light of Light.
    • Alfred Tennyson, Inscription on the Window in memory of Caxton, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, London.
  • A remnant of uneasy light.
  • The light that never was on sea or land,
    The consecration, and the poet's dream.
  • But ne'er to a seductive lay let faith be given;
    Nor deem that "light that leads astray" is light from Heaven.

See also [edit]

External links [edit]

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