Various Quotations: darkness and memory
Sep. 1st, 2007 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joiedecombatWeather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.
George Carlin
In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), "The Crack-Up" (1936)
When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.
Plato (427 BC - 347 BC), The Republic
Character is what you are in the dark.
American Proverb
Maybe you have to know darkness before you can appreciate the light.
Madeleine L'engle (1918 - ), her novel-- "A Ring of Endless Light"
Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling.
Morrie Schwartz, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.
Mark van Doren
Turn up the lights--I don't want to go home in the dark.
O. Henry [William Sydney Porter], Last words, 5 June 1910
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.
Henry Miller (1891 - 1980)
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up.
Anne Lamott
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how…We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes de Mille (1909 - 1993)
Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC), The Dog and the Shadow
Word is a shadow of a deed.
Democritus (460 BC - 370 BC), Fragment 145
Alas! must it ever be so?
Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
And fight our own shadows forever?
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803 - 1873)
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
Eudora Welty (1909 - )
We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"
Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000), Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982), What the Dead Men Say, 1954
The day is for honest men, the night for thieves.
Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Iphigenia in Tauris, circa 412 B.C.
Oh, treacherous night! thou lendest thy ready veil to every treason, and teeming mischief's beneath thy shade.
Aaron Hill
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou has chased away these horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate; and with the blessing of thy benign and quiet influence now will I to my couch, although to rest is almost wronging such a night as this.
Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)
However long the night, the dawn will break.
African Proverb
There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.
George Carlin (1937 - )
I haven't a clue as to how my story will end. But that's all right. When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, you don't conclude that the road has vanished. And how else could we discover the stars?
Unknown
When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at all, but our hate is turning our own days and nights into a hellish turmoil.
Dale Carnegie
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)
A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.
Doug Larson
One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)
He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.
Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
James Branch Cabell (1879 - 1958)
George Carlin
In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), "The Crack-Up" (1936)
When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.
Plato (427 BC - 347 BC), The Republic
Character is what you are in the dark.
American Proverb
Maybe you have to know darkness before you can appreciate the light.
Madeleine L'engle (1918 - ), her novel-- "A Ring of Endless Light"
Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling.
Morrie Schwartz, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.
Mark van Doren
Turn up the lights--I don't want to go home in the dark.
O. Henry [William Sydney Porter], Last words, 5 June 1910
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.
Henry Miller (1891 - 1980)
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up.
Anne Lamott
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how…We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes de Mille (1909 - 1993)
Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC), The Dog and the Shadow
Word is a shadow of a deed.
Democritus (460 BC - 370 BC), Fragment 145
Alas! must it ever be so?
Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
And fight our own shadows forever?
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803 - 1873)
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
Eudora Welty (1909 - )
We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"
Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000), Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982), What the Dead Men Say, 1954
The day is for honest men, the night for thieves.
Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Iphigenia in Tauris, circa 412 B.C.
Oh, treacherous night! thou lendest thy ready veil to every treason, and teeming mischief's beneath thy shade.
Aaron Hill
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou has chased away these horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate; and with the blessing of thy benign and quiet influence now will I to my couch, although to rest is almost wronging such a night as this.
Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)
However long the night, the dawn will break.
African Proverb
There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.
George Carlin (1937 - )
I haven't a clue as to how my story will end. But that's all right. When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, you don't conclude that the road has vanished. And how else could we discover the stars?
Unknown
When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at all, but our hate is turning our own days and nights into a hellish turmoil.
Dale Carnegie
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)
A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.
Doug Larson
One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)
He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.
Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
James Branch Cabell (1879 - 1958)
