» On light

Contact light.

Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin Jr . 1930- . American astronaut . first words spoken on the moon, when Apollo 11 landed (21 july 1969)

So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.

Bahá’u’lláh . 1817-1892 . Persian founder of the Bahá’í faith . in reference.bahai.org

Your parents smile for the camera in sienna shades of light
Now you’re older than they were then that summer night.

Mary Chapin Carpenter . 1958- American singer/songwriter . song, Come on, come on

There was a time
when the light from my eyes
was so powerful
it would blind the sun
Now look
no light
nothing

Joseph Chaikin . 1935-2003 . American theatre director, playwright and Sam Shepard . 1943- . American playwright, actor and director . The war in heaven

There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart.
The first of these is science, and the second is art… The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.

Raymond Chandler . 1888-1959 . American author . The notebooks of Raymond Chandler

Light held together by moisture.

Galileo Galilei . 1564-1642 . Italian physicist and astronomer . definition of wine . quoted in Discoveries and opinions of Galileo (Drake, 1957)

Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.

Nathaniel Hawthorne . 1804-1864 . American novelist, short story writer . The American notebooks

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame… and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.

Robert G Ingersoll . 1833-1899 . American social activist, orator, agnostic

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 psychiatrist . quoted in The leader’s digest (Clemmer, 2003)

Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light.

Le Corbusier . 1887-1965 . Franco-Swiss architect and designer . Vers une architecture (1923)

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Louis MacNeice . 1907-1963 . Irish poet and playwright . The sunlight on the garden

Scribal culture and Gothic architecture were both concerned with light through, not light on.

Marshall McLuhan . 1911-1980 . Canadian philosopher of communication theory . The Gutenberg galaxy (1962)

Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.

John Milton . 1608-1674 . English poet, polemicist, man of letters, civil servant . Paradise Lost

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?

Michel de Saint Pierre . 1916-1987 . French novelist and journalist . (misattributed to Descartes)

There are two kinds of light—the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures.

James Thurber . 1894-1961 . American humorist and cartoonist . Lanterns and lances

Chaos illumined by flashes of lightning.

Oscar Wilde . 1854-1900 . Irish essayist, novelist, playwright, poet . of George Meredith’s style . The decay of lying

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

Marianne Williamson . 1952- . American ‘spiritual activist’ and writer . A return to love, p 190 . (often misattributed for some bizarre reason to Nelson Mandela)

On light