Quotes
Quotes about Light
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
CONSIDERING THE VOID When I behold the charm of evening skies, their lulling endurance; the patterns of stars with names of bears and dogs, a swan, a virgin; other planets that the Voyager showed were like and so unlike our own, with all their diverse moons, bright discs, weird rings, and cratered faces; comets with their streaming tails bent by pressure from our sun; the skyscape of our Milky Way holding in its shimmering disc an infinity of suns (or say a thousand billion); knowing there are holes of darkness gulping mass and even light, knowing that this galaxy of ours is one of multitudes in what we call the heavens, it troubles me. It troubles me. -President Jimmy Carter- (he has written a volume of poetry as well as a novel, The Hornet's Nest, about the Revolutionary War).
A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.
While Fell was reposing himself in the hay, A reptile concealed bit his leg as he lay; But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light, And got well, while the scorpion died of the bite.
All men carry about them that which is poyson to serpents: for if it be true that is reported, they will no better abide the touching with man's spittle than scalding water cast upon them: but if it happed to light within their chawes or mouth, especially if it come from a man that is fasting, it is present death.
Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.
For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.
We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.
Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.
Darkness yields to starlight, to the light of the rising sun, and to the light of the soul.
If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed in winning the support of their fellow citizens and converting them to the endorsement of policies that bring and preserve prosperity, the cause of mankind and civilization is hopeless. There is no other means to safeguard a propitious development of human affairs than to make the masses of inferior people adopt the ideas of the elite. This has to be achieved by convincing them. It cannot be accomplished by a despotic regime that instead of enlightening the masses beats them into submission. In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.
Every castle of the air Sleeps in the fine black grains, and there Are seeds for every romance, or light Whiff of a dream for a summer night.
Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful; messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some.
Delightful praise!--like summer rose, That brighter in the dew-drop glows, The bashful maiden's cheek appear'd, For Douglas spoke, and Malcolm heard.
Father of Light! great God of Heaven! Hear'st thou the accents of despair? Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
He that negotiates between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech.
Even ministers of good things are like torches, a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves.
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it will contract.
It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom.
Oh! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began, Dropt on the world--a sacred gift to man.
