There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.
Patrick Rothfuss (b. 1973) American author
The Name of the Wind, ch. 43 “The Flickering Way” (2007)
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Quotations about:
darkness
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) Lebanese-American poet, writer, painter [Gibran Khalil Gibran]
Sand and Foam (1946)
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As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. Sitting deep in the heart of Organ Cave, I let this sink in: new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.
Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
Learning to Walk in the Dark
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“Darkness” is shorthand for anything that scares me — that I want no part of — either because I am sure that I do not have the resources to survive it or because I do not want to find out. The absence of God is in there, along with the fear of dementia and the loss of those nearest and dearest to me. So is the melting of polar ice caps, the suffering of children, and the nagging question of what it will feel like to die. If I had my way, I would eliminate everything from chronic back pain to the fear of the devil from my life and the lives of those I love — if I could just find the right night-lights to leave on.
At least I think I would. The problem is this: when, despite all my best efforts, the lights have gone off in my life (literally or figuratively, take your pick), plunging me into the kind of darkness that turns my knees to water, nonetheless I have not died. The monsters have not dragged me out of bed and taken me back to their lair. The witches have not turned me into a bat. Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.
Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
Learning to Walk in the Dark, Introduction (2014)
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One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3743 (1732)
Without darkness, nothing comes to birth,
As without light, nothing flowers.May Sarton (1912-1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist [pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton]
“The Invocation to Kali,” Part 5, Poetry (Feb 1971)
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It is so much easier to tell intimate things in the dark.
In relation to his public, the artist of to-day […] walks at first with his companions, till one day he falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above, only to re-immerse itself in the solitude of the limestone and carry him along its winding tunnel, until it gushes out through the misty creeper-hung cave which he has always believed to exist, and sets him back in the sun.
Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) English intellectual, literary critic and writer.
“Writers and Society, 1940-3” (1943), The Condemned Playground (1946)
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Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Reaper Man (1991)
Night makes no difference ‘twixt the priest and clerk;
Joan as my lady is as good i’ th’ dark.Robert Herrick (1591-1674) English poet
“No Difference i’ th’ Dark,” Hesperides, # 864 (1648)
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There is nothing in the dark that isn’t there when the lights are on.
George Clayton Johnson (1929-2015) American writer
Twilight Zone, 3×16 “Nothing in the Dark”, closing narration (5 Jan 1962)
Often attributed to Rod Serling, who read the narration and produced the show.
If you ever want to feel like you’re on the verge of total, abject bowel-releasing terror, try making your way a klick or two out of a forest, at night, with the certain feeling you’re being hunted. It makes you feel alive, it really does, but not in a way you want to feel alive.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Zoe’s Tale (2008)
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; — one step enough for me.John Henry Newman (1801-1890) English prelate, Catholic Cardinal, theologian
“Lead, Kindly Light” (16 Jun 1833)
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She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
“She Walks in Beauty,” st. 1 (1814), Hebrew Melodies (1815)
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Richard looked at the woman in leather. “Is there anything, really, to be scared of?”
“Only the night on the bridge,” she said.
“The kind in armor?”
“The kind that comes when the day is over.”
There’s power in the night. There’s terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when the darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear. Get a good ways out from civilization — say, miles and miles away on a lightless lake — and the darkness is there, waiting. Twilight means more than just time to call the children in from playing outside. Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood. Night is when unseen beings with no regard for what our people have built and no place in what we have deemed the natural order look in at our world from outside, and think dark and alien thoughts. And sometimes, just sometimes, they do things.
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004) Swiss-American psychiatrist, author
(Attributed)
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Attributed to her by the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation.
The quotation is often cited to Jim Clemmer, The Leader's Digest (2003), but Clemmer simply attributes it to Kübler-Ross. I have been unable to find an primary source.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction […] The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 3: The Return of the King, Book 6, ch. 2 “The Land of Shadow” (1954)
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Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.His sword was long, his lance was keen,
his shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven’s field
were mirrored in his silver shield.But long ago he rode away
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 11 “A Knife in the Dark” [Sam] (1954)
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Sam says he was taught it by Bilbo, who claimed to have written it. Aragorn corrects him, saying it is part of a lay called "The Fall of Gil-galad," though Bilbo appears to have translated it from the Elvish.
It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.
Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) English churchman, historian
A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine, ii. xi (1650)
IVANOVA: I’ve always had a hard time getting up when it’s dark outside.
SINCLAIR: But in space, it’s always dark.
IVANOVA: I know. I know.J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 1×13 “Signs and Portents” (8 May 1994)
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
[Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.]
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Beyond Good and Evil], Aphorism 146 (1886) [tr. Hollingdale (1973, 1990)]
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Alternate translations:
He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.
[tr. Zimmern (1906)]
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
[tr. Kaufmann (1966)]
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
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Where there is much light, the shadows are deepest.
[Wo viel Licht is, ist starker Schatten.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Gotz von Berlichingen, I, 24 (1773)
I made a comparison at table some time since, which has often been quoted, and received many compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
“The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” Atlantic Monthly (1858-04)
(Source)
Often trimmed/paraphrased to "The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract." Frequently misattributed to his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The Autocrat himself correctly comments that a similar phrase appears in Thomas Moore, Preface to the poems "Corruption" and "Intolerance":
The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more the stronger light there is shed upon them.
The Autocrat goes on to note, "When a person of fair character for literary honesty uses an image such as another has employed before him, the presumption is, that he has struck upon it independently, or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it his own."
Collected in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. 6 (1858)
When the candles are out, all women are fair.
Plutarch (AD 46-127) Greek historian, biographer, essayist [Mestrius Plutarchos]
Morals [Moralia], “Conjugal Precepts” #46
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Alt. trans.: "All women are alike when the lamp is put out."
FOOL: There is no darkness but ignorance.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Twelfth Night, Act 4, sc. 2, l. 44 (4.2.44) (1601)
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