# Candles

Candles are a traditional method of providing illumination, now superseded for most purposes by electric lightbulbs.

## Quotes

    Alphabetized by author
* All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.
** Francis of Assisi, The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi
* Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, And the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
** Gautama Buddha (attributed), Sutta Nipata
* Some say, that Signor Bononcini, Compared to Handel's a mere ninny; Others aver, to him, that Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle. Strange! that such high dispute should be 'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
** John Byrom, On the Feuds between Handel and Bononcini.
* They say rather than cursing the darkness, one should light a candle. They don't mention anything about cursing a lack of candles.
** George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)
* I wonder if that's the reason insects are so fond of flying into candles - because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!
** Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter 3.
* "If that there King was to wake," added Tweedledum, "you'd go out - bang! - just like a candle!"
** Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 4.
* The candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking something like a bed of rushes with fireworks at the top.
** Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 9.
* His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends"
** Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark (1874), Fit the First.
* No, not dead. But the candle in that great turnip has gone out.
** When someone said "One never hears of Baldwin nowadays - he might as well be dead".
** Winston Churchill, recorded in Harold Nicolson's diary for 17 August 1950.
* I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.
** Abraham Davenport, in response to a call for adjourning the Connecticut State Council because of fears that New England's Dark Day might be a sign that the Last Judgment was approaching, as quoted by Timothy Dwight, in Connecticut Historical Collectons 2d ed (1836) compiled by John Warner Barber, p. 403.
* 'Tis nothing but a magic shadow-show, Played in a box whose candle is the sun
** Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1st ed, 1859), stanza 46.
* The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: the morning daylight appears plainer when you put out your candle.
** Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758), Chapter "On Virtue, Vice, God, And Faith".
* I believe that it is better to light one candle than to promise a million light bulbs.
** Stephen Harper, as quoted in The New York Times (24 January 2006)
* Then, she lit up a candle and she showed me the way.
** Don Henley, "Hotel California" (1976), Hotel California, Asylum Records
* He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
** Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) ME 13:333.
* And it seems to me you lived your life Like a candle in the wind
** Elton John, Candle in the Wind.
* It is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to shew light at Calais.
** Samuel Johnson, of Thomas Sheridan's influence on the English language; reported in Boswell's Life of Johnson (28 July 1763).
* We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as (I trust) shall never be put out.
** Hugh Latimer, just before his execution by burning; quoted by John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1570) p. 1937.
* To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
** Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Chapter 3.
* On the Coast of Coromandel Where the early pumpkins blow, In the middle of the woods Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò. Two old chairs, and half a candle, One old jug without a handle, These were all his worldly goods
** Edward Lear, The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò.
* My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends — It gives a lovely light.
** Edna St. Vincent Millay, "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920).
* This ambiance of candlelight reminds of nights that traveled its way, in entangled embrace of yours and mine.
** Suman Pokhrel, A Reminiscent Candlelight
* Every moment age is creeping up stealthily, but life, life is melting down like a candle that is flickering around.
** Suman Pokhrel, A Birthday Greeting to Myself
* Death is shaping up slowly and quietly but life, life is melting down like a candle that is flickering all night.
** Suman Pokhrel, A Birthday Greeting to Myself
* The light that shines at the wick of a tallow candle is made of fire and related to the light of sacred lamps.
** Grace Rhys, The Quest of the Ideal (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1913), p. 37.
* Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back, When gold and silver becks me to come on.
** William Shakespeare, King John, III, iii, line 12.
* Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
** William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, scene v.
* Thus hath the candle singed the moth.
** William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, II, ix, line 79.
* In winter I get up at night, And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way I have to go to bed by day.
** Robert Louis Stevenson, In Winter I get up at Night.
* The candle by which she had been reading the book filled with trouble and deceit, sorrow and evil, flared up with a brighter light, illuminating for her everything that before had been enshrouded in darkness, flickered, grew dim, and went out forever.
** Leo Tolstoy trans. Rosemary Edmonds, Anna Karenina, part 7, chapter 31.
* A single candle can lit a thousand candles without losing anything. [...] Let us be like those shining candles [...] benefitting all sentient beings.
** Thích Nhật Từ, Inner Freedom: A Spiritual Journey for Prison Inmates (2008), ISBN 1741893909.
* Denunciatory rhetoric is so much easier and cheaper than good works, and proves a popular temptation. Yet it is far better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
** William Lonsdale Watkinson, "The Invincible Strategy" in The Supreme Conquest and Other Sermons (1907)
* "This well may be The Day of Judgment which the world awaits; But be it so or not, I only know My present duty, and my Lord's command To occupy till He come. So at the post Where He hath set me in His providence, I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, — No faithless servant frightened from my task, But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, Let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles." And they brought them in.
** John Greenleaf Whittier, quoting or paraphrasing Abraham Davenport in his poem "Abraham Davenport" (May 1866).
* How commentators each dark passage shun, And hold their farthing candle to the sun
** Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-1728), Satire vii, Line 97.