Quotes
Quotes about Light
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.
Methinks I am a prophet new inspired And thus, expiring, do foretell of him: His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small show'rs last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding doth choke the feeder; Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of Heaven, The Tempest growls; but as it nearer comes, And rolls its awful burden on the wind, The Lightnings flash a larger curve, and more The Noise astounds; till overhead a sheet Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts, And opens wider; shuts and opens still Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze. Follows the loosen'd aggravated Roar, Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal, Crush'd, horrible, convulsing Heaven and Earth.
But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
So let it be in God's own might We gird us for the coming fight, And, strong in Him whose cause is ours In conflict with unholy powers, We grasp the weapons he has given,-- The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.
The dousing wand The lightning rod Conductor's baton Will's aligned spine They find the water, invoke the lightning attract the music and summon angels' aid.
Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.
Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.
The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work. - Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire),
Nothing fails like success. â¢Gerald Nachman We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like? â¢Jean Cocteau Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. â¢Lily Tomlin The penalty for success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you. â¢Nancy Astor For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself. â¢Rita Mae Brown Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. â¢Mark Twain The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. Success teaches how to succeed. Begin with the determination to succeed, and the work is half done already. â¢J.N. Fadenburg Make a success of living by seeing the goal and aiming for it unswervingly. â¢Cecil B. Demille I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. â¢Abraham Lincoln The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. â¢Groucho Marx Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.
We have suffered lightly, if we have suffered what we should weep for. [Lat., Levia perpessi sumus Si flenda patimur.]
Britannia's shame! There took her gloomy flight, On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul . . . Less base the fear of death than fear of life. O Britain! infamous for suicide.
That beautiful season . . . the Summer of All-Saints! Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
O summer day beside the joyous sea! O summer day so wonderful and white, So full of gladness and so full of pain! Forever and forever shalt thou be To some the gravestone of a dead delight, To some the landmark of a new domain.
The sun, centre and sire of light, The keystone of the world-built arch of heaven.
She stood breast-high amid the corn, Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won.
Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth, in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western waves. But thou, thyself, movest alone.
I am moved by the light. [Lat., A lumine motus.]
Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai.
After a day of cloud and wind and rain Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again, And touching all the darksome woods with light, Smiles on the fields until they laugh and sing, Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring, Drops down into the night.
Now in his Palace of the West, Sinking to slumber, the bright Day, Like a tired monarch fann'd to rest, 'Mid the cool airs of Evening lay; While round his couch's golden rim The gaudy clouds, like courtiers, crept-- Struggling each other's light to dim, And catch his last smile e'er he slept.
The swallow is come! The swallow is come! O, fair are the seasons, and light Are the days that she brings, With her dusky wings, And her bosom snowy white!
I pray your Highness mark this curious herb: Touch it but lightly, stroke it softly, Sir, And it gives forth an odor sweet and rare; But crush it harshly and you'll make a scent Most disagreeable.
The Greek word euphuia, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to perceive it; a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of things"--as Swift . . . most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light."
The pursuit of the perfect, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
