Quotes
Quotes about Light
Far below and around lay the city like a ragged purple dream. The irregular houses were like the broken exteriors of cliffs lining deep gulches and winding streams. Some were mountainous; some lay in long, monotonous rows like, the basalt precipices hanging over desert canons. Such was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city. But into this background were cut myriads of brilliant parallelograms and circles and squares through which glowed many colored lights. And out of the violet and purple depths ascended like the city's soul, sound and odors and thrills that make up the civic body. There arose the breath of gaiety unrestrained, of love, of hate, of all the passions that man can know. There below him lay all things, good or bad, that can be brought from the four corners of the earth to instruct, please, thrill, enrich, elevate, cast down, nurture or kill. Thus the flavor of it came up to him and went into his blood.
"If you don't mind me asking," came the bell-like tones of the Golden Diana, "I'd like to know where you got that City Hall brogue. I did not know that Liberty was necessarily Irish." "If ye'd studied the history of art in its foreign complications, ye'd not need ask," replied Mrs. Liberty, "If ye wasn't so light and giddy ye'd know that I was made by a Dago and presented to the American people on behalf of the French Government for the purpose of welcomin' Irish immigrants into the Dutch city of New York. 'Tis that I've been doing night and day since I was erected."
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of exiles.
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies, As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise, And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night, Till we join with the planets who choir their delight, The signs in the streets and the signs in the skies Shall make a new Zodiac, guiding the wise, And Broadway make one with that marvelous stair That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.
Lo! body and soul!--this land! Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and The sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land,--the South And the North in the light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn. - Walt Whitman,
The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one: Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done.
For the night Shows stars and women in a better light.
Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light, And drew behind the cloudy vale of night.
For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed, So poets live upon the living light.
It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whispered word; And gentle winds, and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaf a browner hue, And in the heaven that clear obscure, So softly dark, and darkly pure. Which follows the decline of day, As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours, Of winter's past or coming void of care, Well pleased with delights which present are, Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers.
Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, To the inward ear devout, Touched by light, with heavenly warning Your transporting chords ring out. Every leaf in every nook, Every wave in every brook, Chanting with a solemn voice Minds us of our better choice.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; 'Tis dearness only that gives everything its value.
It is now possible for a flight attendant to get a pilot pregnant.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
Not by appointment do we meet delight Or joy; they heed not our expectancy; But round some corner of the streets of life They of a sudden greet us with a smile.
The dictate of the light says: "Know yourself and what you are." The dark replies, "By all means, but then become afraid."
We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than permanent. - Franklin J. Dickman,
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined; Till at his second bidding darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.
Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy: not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theater for virtue is conscience.
When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.
Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book, To seek the light of truth, which truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
There is no real evil in life, except great pain; all the rest is imaginary, and depends on the light in which we view things.
Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.
