c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
deathAloneness has been my constant companion in life. I lost early the people that I loved: first when my young and unmarried biological mother had to leave me because of outer circumstances. I was adopted by a very loving couple, who could not concieve a child. I have always felt naturally loved by them, and I have never really felt that I was adopted. Instead, I have always felt that I did a little detour to be able to be adopted by my real parents. Then my mother died when I was 15 years old after a long sickness. On her funeral I took the decision to never depend on anybody again. Her death created such a deep pain in me that it was also the death of relationships for me. Then my father died when I was 21 years old – and I was completely alone in the world. This created a basic feeling of being alone and unloved in me, it created early a feeling of independence and self-suffiency in me. It also created a basic feeling of not trusting that I am alright as I am, and of not trusting that life takes care of me. This created such a pain in me that I simply repressed the pain for many years in order to survive. These early meetings with death also created a thirst in me to discover a quality, an inner awareness, that death could not take away. Now I can see that these early painful experiences are a blessing in disguise. It liberated me from relationships. I relate with people, but there is always an aloneness within me. I realize that a seeker of truth needs to accept that he is totally alone. It is not possible to lean on other people like crutches. When we totally accept our aloneness, it becomes a source of love, joy, truth, silence, meditation and wholeness. I shared these experiences with a beloved friend and her thoughtful comment was: “I have my own aloneness.” Aloneness is to be at home in ourselves, to be in contact with our inner source of love, while loneliness is to hanker for other people, to hanker for a source of love outside of ourselves. Aloneness is to come home.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Life is like playing “hide the key” with God. God has hidden the key and now it is up to us to find the key again. It also takes us a while to realize that the key is hidden in our own heart. Our heart is the door to allow life to guide us. Our heart is the door to say “yes” to life. Our heart is the door to surrender to life.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
When I pursued an education in healing in the USA in 1984, I was told that I had the capacity to become a crownchakrahealer, a spiritual healer, to act as a channel and catalyst for spiritual energy from the 7th chakra through the heart. At that time I had no idea what a crownchakrahealer really was and since than it has been a continuous process during the last 17 years to deepen and develop my understanding about what a crownchakrahealer is. This process has resulted in a way of working I call "Synchronicity – Transmission of the Light", which uses healing and energy work from the Source on a formless level. With this way of working I have worked with groups up to 80 people. It is really a way of working, which goes around the ego and speaks directly to the heart. It allows a person to come in direct contact with his own inner being, with his own life source. With my intellect I still do not understand how this way of working functions. It is not a way of working, which can be understood on a method plane. It is a way of working, which relates directly to the heart and which can only be understood through insight and experience. One participant in Gothenburg in Sweden described his experience of Synchronicity as being like a thousand suns suddenly had been lit in his own consciousness. He says: "It was like an inner explosion, an expansion of my own consciousness – and I felt only love for the other people in the room".
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
The greatest gift we can give to another person is our love.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.
— Aberjhani, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black
If you have time to be mindful, you have time to meditate.
— Ajahn Chah
Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. There’s less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing what’s happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom.
— Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
Intuition is the language of silence, the Existential language. The word "in-tuition" means to listen within yourself. Intuition is the silent voice within, which is already in contact with the Existence. Intuition is the voice of God. The more you come in contact with the inner silence, the inner emptiness, the more you have access to your intuition. Silence is the nourishment for intuition. If something increases your love, joy and silence, it is the criterion that it is the right path for you. If something decreases your love, joy and silence, it is a sign that you are on the wrong path. Do not compare yourself with others when it comes to take a decision about what you should do, follow the love, joy and silence of your heart and inner being. When you are in contact with your inner silence, you just know what you should do - you do not have to think about it, and you do not need not compare the pros and cons - you just know. You can listen to the advice of others, but always listen to your intuition, to your inner teacher and guide in life, when you take the final decision. The intuition, the language of silence, will always lead your right.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
When one of the emperors of China asked Bodhidharma (the Zen master who brought Zen from India to China) what enlightenment was, his answer was, “Lots of space, nothing holy.” Meditation is nothing holy. Therefore there’s nothing that you think or feel that somehow gets put in the category of “sin.” There’s nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of “bad.” There’s nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of “wrong.” It’s all good juicy stuff—the manure of waking up, the manure of achieving enlightenment, the art of living in the present moment.
— Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living
The mind and the breath are the king and queen of human consciousness".
— Leonard  D. Orr
You have a unique body and mind, with a particular history and conditioning. No one can offer you a formula for navigating all situations and all states of mind. Only by listening inwardly in a fresh and open way will you discern at any given time what most serves your healing and freedom.
— Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
Love is not an exclusive relationship with another person; love is the quality that arises when we are in contact with our inner being, with our authentic self, with the meditative quality within, with the inner silence and emptiness. This inner emptiness is experienced by others and is expressed on the outside as love. This love is not addressed to a specific person; it is a presence and quality that surrounds a person like a fragrance.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
Only those who have the great capacity of genuine trust can enter this realm [the realm of the buddhas]. Those who have no trust are unable to accept it, however much they hear it.
— Dōgen, Beyond Thinking: A Guide to Zen Meditation
The world we live in might not be free from pain, but you have the ability to create for yourself a world free from struggle.
— Sheila Applegate, Enchanted One: The Portal to Love
Know that the true dharma emerges of itself [during the practice of zazen], clearing away hindrances and distractions.
— Dōgen
I have always had the capacity to go within myself and to discover the silence within, the inner meditative quality, the inner source of love and truth – the inner language of silence.Now I also notice that this silence is going deeper, and that I go beyond the ego and disappear into the silence.First this brought up fear, but now I am enjoying this meditation of disappering into the silence and to be nobody. I have started experimenting with this phenomenon to understand how to consciously go beyond the ego: yesterday when I took a cofee at a restaurant, I consciously turned my attention within and disappeared into the silence, which was like finding an inner source of bliss. In aloneness, I experiment with being consciously alone as a door to be egoless. In conscious aloneness, the ego can not function. In aloneness, your are not. When I am walking, I consciously experiment with being with Existence without having the mind constantly commenting. I try to just be wordlessly with the people and situations that I meet on my walk. When I can just be with Existence, it opens the door to be one with the Whole.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Down on my knees / I peel back the layers of the world.
— Leza Lowitz, Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold by
Sant Mat (the path and teachings as taught and practiced by saints) delineates the path of union of soul with the Divine. The teachings of the saints explain the re-uniting as follows:The individual soul has descended from the higher worlds [the Realm of the Divine] to this city of illusion, bodily existence. It has descended from the Soundless state to the essence of Sound, from that Sound to Light, and finally from the realm of Light to the realm of Darkness. The qualities (dharmas, natural tendencies) of the sense organs draw us downward and away from our true nature.The nature of the soul (atman) draws us upwards and inwards and establishes us in our own true nature. Returning to our origins involves turning inward: withdrawal of consciousness from the senses and the sense objects in order to go upward from the darkness to the realms of Light and Sound. [We experience this phenomenon of withdrawal as we pass from waking consciousness to deep sleep.] Another way to express this is to go inward from the external sense organs to the depth of the inner self. (Both of these expressions are the metaphors that signify the same movement). The natural tendencies of the soul (atman) are to move from outward to inward. The current of consciousness which is dispersed in the nine gates of the body and the senses, must be collected at the tenth gate.The tenth gate is the gathering point of consciousness. Therein lies the path for our return. The tenth gate is also known as the sixth chakra, the third eye, bindu, the center located between the two eyebrows. This is the gateway through which we leave the gates of the sense organs and enter in the divine realms and finally become established in the soul. We travel back from the Realm of Darkness to the Realm of Light, from the Light to the Divine Sound, and from the Realm of Sound to the Soundless State. This is called turning back to the Source.This is what dharma or religion really intends to teach us. This is the essence of dharma.
— Swami Sant Sevi Ji Maharaj
Hold the thoughts, know the thoughts and you realize the thoughts have slowed showing breaks and gaps, be the witness to them and you shall be meditating
— Maitreya Rudrabhayananda
Like the best convenience store in the world, / the mind is always open.
— Leza Lowitz, Yoga Heart: Lines on the Six Perfections
A primary rule of practice is meditation with no objects or anchors. Just concentrate on the breath.
— Toshimi A. Kayaki, Green Tea Living: A Japan-Inspired Guide to Eco-friendly Habits, Health, and Happiness
Lizzie said that if you imagined you were standing on the moon, looking down on the earth, you wouldn't be able to see the itty-bitty people racing around worrying you wouldn't see the barn falling in or the cow stuck in the pond; you wouldn't see the mean Granger kids squirting mustard on your white dress. You would see the most beautiful blue oceans and green lands, and the whole earth would look like a giant blue-and-green marble floating in the sky. Your worries would seem so small, maybe invisible.
— Sharon Creech, The Great Unexpected
Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome at a later time. However, it must be said in the most unambiguous terms that this is not real Zen. To follow the Dharma involves a complete reorientation of one's life in such a way that one's activities are manifestations of, and are filled with, a deeper meaning. If it were not otherwise, and merely sitting in zazen were enough, every frog in the pond would be enlightened, as one Zen master said. Dōgen Zenji himself said that one must practice Zen with the attitude of a person trying to extinguish a fire in his hair. That is, Zen must be practiced with an attitude of single-minded urgency.
— Francis Harold Cook, How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, Including Ten Newly Translated Essays
Recollection of death also serves as a useful preparation for the time when one actually has to face death. As the concluding exercise among the body contemplations, a regular recollection of death can lead to the realization that death is fearful only to the extent to which one identifies with the body. With the aid of the body contemplations one can come to realize the true [impermanent] nature of the body and thereby overcome one's attachment to it. Being free from attachment to the body, one will be freed from any fear of physical death.
— Anālayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization
The advantages of developing absorption concentration are not only that it provides a stable and receptive state of mind for the practice of insight meditation. The experience of absorption is one of intense pleasure and happiness, brought about by purely mental means, which thereby automatically eclipses any pleasure arising in dependence on material objects. Thus absorption functions as a powerful antidote to sensual desires by divesting them of their former attraction.
— Anālayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization
The most important therapeutic capacity is the ability to be present with an open heart and to be grounded in our inner being,in our essence and authentic self, in the meditative quality within, through which we can meet another person. It is to meet that which is already perfect within a person.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Sadhana means the practice to closest to the GOD (Baba) and a Shivir means an environment in which the sadhakas get the opportunity and guidance to do sadhana in a perfect manner................ i think.
— shailendra kumar Lal
Feelings and stories of unworthiness and shame are perhaps the most binding element in the trance of fear. When we believe something is wrong with us, we are convinced we are in danger. Our shame fuels ongoing fear, and our fear fuels more shame. The very fact that we feel fear seems to prove that we are broken or incapable. When we are trapped in trance, being fearful and bad seem to define who we are. The anxiety in our body, the stories, the ways we make excuses, withdraw or lash out—these become to us the self that is most real.
— Tara Brach
Imagine a delicious glass of summer iced tea.Take a long cool sip. Listen to the ice crackle and clink.Is the glass part full or part empty?Take another sip.And now?
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Go within every day and find the inner strengthso that the world will not blow your candle out.
— Katherine Dunham
While the bodies of young children are usually relaxed and flexible, if experiences of fear are continuous over the years, chronic tightening happens. Our shoulders may become permanently knotted and raised, our head thrust forward, our back hunched, our chest sunken. Rather than a temporary reaction to danger, we develop a permanent suit of armor. We become, as Chogyam Trungpa puts it, “a bundle of tense muscles defending our existence.” We often don’t even recognize this armor because it feels like such a familiar part of who we are. But we can see it in others. And when we are meditating, we can feel it in ourselves—the tightness, the areas where we feel nothing.
— Tara Brach
The path towards peace is not for the righteous, the ethical, the active and the compassionate to shit on the malicious, the complacent, the violent and the ignorant. The path towards peace is to be peaceful.
— Ilyas Kassam
I meditateSo that I can inundateMy entire beingWith the omnipotent power of peace.
— Sri Chinmoy, The Wings of Joy: Finding Your Path to Inner Peace
Because all actions and expressionsstem from the mind, it is vital to know themind as well as decide in what way we’ll use it. Everyone has heard of psychosomatic illness, and most of us acknowledge that psychosomatic sicknesses can and do occur. But whatabout psychosomatic wellness?
— H.E. Davey
Plants or animals rarely behave in an unnatural manner that’s contrary to their true makeup. Human beings are also natural beings, but at the same time, we’re conscious entities. We therefore have free will and must make the choice not merely to be part of nature, but also to follow faithfully the “laws of nature.
— H.E. Davey
Retaining our capacity for reasonis common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment.
— H.E. Davey
Genuine goodness isn’t discovered through postponement but must exist now or not at all. It cannot be based on what is not. We must find it in what is and what we truly see.
— H.E. Davey, Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation
I should have titled it "Diet Like Your Life Depended On It!" because it's about so much more than just beating Diabetes.
— Russell Stamets
Mind and body are in many ways opposite from each other, and mind and body must each act according to its own principles. Nonetheless, while the mind and body are different in disposition, they are complementary opposites that form a single whole. For us to sustain mind and body harmony, and function as whole human beings, we need to discover the actual nature of the mind’s characteristics.
— H.E. Davey
The innate harmony that exists between mind and body is one of the secrets behind the amazing power of Shin-shin-toitsu-do, which is weakened by an inefficient use of the body. Our bodies must be strong, relaxed, and healthy to respond to our minds’ commands.
— H.E. Davey
Shin-shin-toitsu-do includes a wide variety of stretching exercises, breathing methods, forms of seated meditation and moving meditation, massage-like healing arts, techniques of auto-suggestion, and mind and body coordination drills, as well as principles for the unification ofmind and body.These principles of mind and body coordination are regarded as universal laws that express the workings of nature on human life. As such, they can be applied directly to an endless number of everyday activities and tasks. It is not uncommon when studying Japanese yoga to encounter classes and seminars that deal with the direct application of these universal principles to office work, sales, management, sports, art, music, public speaking, and a host of other topics.How to use these precepts of mind and body integration to realize our full potential in any action is the goal. All drills, exercises, and practices of Shin-shin-toitsu-do are based on the same principles, thus linking intelligently a diversity of arts. But more than this, they serve as vehicles for grasping and cultivating the principles of mind and body coordination. And it is these principles that can be put to use directly, unobtrusively, and immediately in our daily lives.
— H.E. Davey
There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.
— Bram Stoker, Dracula
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, Reaper Man
May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
— Leonora Carrington
We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
— Og Mandino
Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.
— Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux
In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.
— Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.
— John Milton, Paradise Lost
In Light there is Dark, and in Dark there is Light.
— Kami Garcia, Beautiful Darkness
It's hard to be a bright light in a dim world.
— Gary Starta
People often believed they were safer in the light, thinking monsters only came out at night.
— C.J. Roberts, Captive in the Dark
Too much of anything could destroy you, Simon thought. Too much darkness could kill, but too much light could blind.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls
Love is not consolation. It is light.
— Simone Weil
What can I do, Muslims? I do not know myself.I am neither Christian nor Jew, neither Magian nor Muslim,I am not from east or west, not from land or sea,not from the shafts of nature nor from the spheres of the firmament,not of the earth, not of water, not of air, not of fire.I am not from the highest heaven, not from this world,not from existence, not from being.I am not from India, not from China, not from Bulgar, not from Saqsin,not from the realm of the two Iraqs, not from the land of Khurasan.I am not from the world, not from beyond,not from heaven and not from hell.I am not from Adam, not from Eve, not from paradise and not from Ridwan.My place is placeless, my trace is traceless,no body, no soul, I am from the soul of souls.I have chased out duality, lived the two worlds as one.One I seek, one I know, one I see, one I call.He is the first, he is the last, he is the outer, he is the 
— Jalaluddin Rumi
There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?
— Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis
Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth...
— Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
The only whole heart is a broken one because it lets the light in.
— David J. Wolpe
Life throws challenges and every challenge comes with rainbows and lights to conquer it.
— Amit Ray, World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird
The Warrior of the Light is a believer.Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears.
— Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you.
— Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty
In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories. 
— Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night
When I’m with you, even my past seems like a bad dream,” he says. “I’ve sat on this hill a hundred times, and all I used to see were lights that represented places where I wasn’t wanted, where I never belonged. Now, when you aren’t with me, I look east and know one of those lights represents you, and I don’t feel alone anymore.
— Katie McGarry, Crash into You
I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. 'Love is not consolation,' she wrote. 'It is light.'All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.
— Maggie Nelson, Bluets
I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I do this? Henceforth will I look on all things with love and be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones
—  yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way
There will always be a door to the light.
— Shiro Amano, Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1
We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion trying to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there's an awful lot of gray to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.
— Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty
Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.
— Jim Carrey
When the Sun of compassion arises darkness evaporates and the singing birds come from nowhere.
— Amit Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power
The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.
— Jay Kristoff, Nevernight
Stars and shadows ain't good to see by.
— Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
As Hamlet said to Ophelia, ”God has given you one face, and you make yourself another." The battle between these two halves of identity...Who we are and who we pretend to be, is unwinnable. "Just as there are two sides to every story, there are two sides to every person. One that we reveal to the world and another we keep hidden inside. A duality governed by the balance of light and darkness, within each of us is the capacity for both good and evil. But those who are able to blur the moral dividing line hold the true power.
— Emily Thorne
I am the kid who sticks her finger in the light socket. I am the person who doesn't check the expiration date on the milk. I am the idiot who has never looked before she leaped. I am the girl who is falling apart, right now.
— Amy Garvey, Cold Kiss
In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is--as the light called human life is--at its coming and its going.
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.
— Mary Anne Radmacher
It's not easy to be Light when you've been Dark. It's almost too much to ask anyone.-Macon Ravenwood
— Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Darkness
Oftentimes we call Life bitter names, but only when we ourselves are bitter and dark. And we deem her empty and unprofitable, but only when the soul goes wandering in desolate places, and the heart is drunken with overmindfulness of self.Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast.And life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled. Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words. When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment.
— Kahlil Gibran, The Garden of The Prophet
No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door: the purpose of light is to create more light, to open people's eyes, to reveal the marvels around.
— Paulo Coelho
In the depth a light will grow,A silver shine no shadows know, Like wings unfolding in the sky,That circle 'round a gleaming eye,Turning darkness all away,Even depths will know their day,For every shadow has its end,In light!Life will return again!
— Robert Fanney
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
— Anonymous, Life Application Study Bible: NIV
No - the light in Tamani's eyes was much more than a reflection. It was the fire that melted her anger and devestated her resolve, every single time she saw it.
— Aprilynne Pike, Illusions
Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.
— William Blake
And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
My first memory is of light -- the brightness of light -- light all around.
— Georgia O'Keeffe
Light is shallow; darkness is infinitely deep. Light is always bounded, it has boundaries. Darkness has no boundaries, it is unbounded. Light comes and goes; darkness always is. When there is light you cannot see it. When light is not there you can see it. But it is always there; you cannot cause it. Light has a cause. You burn the fire, you put on wood. When the wood is finished the light will be gone. It is caused, hence it is an effect. But darkness is not caused by anything, it is not an effect. It is uncaused eternity.
— Osho
Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?What primal night does Man touch with his senses?Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:Love is a war of lightning,and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,and a genital fire, transformed by delight,slips through the narrow channels of bloodto precipitate a nocturnal carnation,to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.
— Pablo Neruda
Just remember, a dark shadow need light to exist but light doesn't need darkness to be luminous.
— Gwen Hayes, Dreaming Awake
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.
— C.G. Jung
... In this world, darkness is always looming on the horizon. At Gottfried, instead of avoiding the dark, we meet it head on ...do the same with your studies and with every obstacle you face in the future. Do not accept the confines of the world as you percei
— Yvonne Woon, Dead Beautiful
Our dreams are luminous, a cast fire upon the world.Morning arrives and that's it.Sunlight darkens the earth.
— Charles Wright
the story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannont always be sweetness and light.
— Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux
I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don’t remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is 'Disappear Here' and even though it’s probably an ad for some resort, it still freaks me out a little and I step on the gas really hard and the car screeches as I leave the light.
— Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero
I preach darkness. I don't inspire hope—only shadows. It's up to you to find the light in my words.
— Charles   Lee
Light is good company, when alone; I took my comfort where I found it, and the warmest yellow bulb in the living-room lamp had become a kind of radiant babysitter all its own.
— Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
No, you don't shoot things. You capture them. Photography means painting with light. And that's what you do. You paint a picture only by adding light to the things you see.
— Katja Michael
Light is important to us humans. It influences our moods, our perceptions, our energy levels. A face glimpsed among trees, dappled by the shadows and the green-tinged light reflected from the forest, will seem quite different to the same face seen on a beach in hard, dry, sunlight, or in a darkening room at twilight, with the shadows of a venetian blind striped across it like a convict’s uniform.
— John Marsden, Everything I Know About Writing
Look at the ex-demon with his big boy pants on now.
— Rob Thurman, Trick of the Light
Everybody has a little bit of the sun and moon in them. Everybody has a little bit of man, woman, and animal in them. Darks and lights in them. Everyone is part of a connected cosmic system. Part earth and sea, wind and fire, with some salt and dust swimming in them. We have a universe within ourselves that mimics the universe outside. None of us are just black or white, or never wrong and always right. No one. No one exists without polarities. Everybody has good and bad forces working with them, against them, and within them.PART SUN AND MOON by Suzy Kassem
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.
— Egon Schiele
When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call "white" is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.
— Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of Love
Darkness as well as light. Or do I mean darkness, another kind of light? Lucifer would say so, and I have a weakness for fallen angels.
— Jeanette Winterson, Art and Lies
The light within the darkness- you've lost sight of it.
— Shiro Amano, Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1
I used to cover my windows in heavy curtains, never drawn. Now I danced in the sunlight on my hardwood floors.
— Kimberly Novosel, Loved
Remember that each light between sunrise and sunset is worth dying for at least once.
— Tad Williams, Shadowrise
Darkness is just light turned inside out.
— Beelzebub
The night belongs to beasts of prey, and always has. It's easy to forget that when you're indoors, protected by light and solid walls.
— Cornelia Funke, Inkheart
Everybody's got the seam of goodness in them, Kit," said Grandpa. "Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light.
— David Almond, Kit's Wilderness
You're the little spoon, aren't you?
— Rob Thurman, Trick of the Light
The dark and the light, they exist side by side,Sometimes overlapping, one explaining the other.The darkened path is as illuminated as the lightened,Only the fear of the dark keeps us from seeing our way.
— Raven Davies, Between Here & There
Beyond the edge of universe,there's a kind of real darkness...where even the light gone astray.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence.
— Italo Calvino, The Nonexistent Knight & The Cloven Viscount
Even though it's dark and cold there is always a shade of light.
— Angela Bernabe
If darkness surrounds you, look for the light. If you can't see it, raise your head up. You may be surrounded by darkness but it does not cover you on top. Let the light shine down on you and let it lead the way out of darkness.
— Ann Marie Aguilar
It was a small room with dim light coming in the window, reminiscent of old Polish films.
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
There is no denying that there is evil in this world but the light will always conquer the darkness.
— Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability
And you, Ring-bearer,’ she said, turning to Frodo. ‘I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.’ She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand. ‘In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Remember Galadriel and her Mirror!’Frodo took the phial, and for a moment as it shone between them, he saw her again standing like a queen, great and beautiful.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
Anxiously you ask, 'Is there a way to safety? Can someone guide me? Is there an escape from threatened destruction?' The answer is a resounding yes! I counsel you: Look to the lighthouse of the Lord. There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what its beacon light can rescue. It beckons through the storms of life. It calls, 'This way to safety; this way to home.
— Thomas S. Monson
Don't hang with negative people. They will pull you down with them. Instead, invite them into your light and together you will both shine strong.
— L.F. Young
What happens to the drop of wineThat you pour into the sea?Does it remain itself, unchanged?It is as if it never existed.So it is with the soul: Love drinks it in,It is united with Truth,Its old nature fades away,It is no longer master of itself.The soul wills and yet does not will:Its will belongs to Another.It has eyes only for this beauty;It no longer seeks to possess, as was its wont--It lacks the strength to possess such sweetness.The base of this highest of peaksIs founded on nichil,Shaped nothingness, made one with the Lord.
— Jacopone da Todi, The God-Madness
John 1:5"Light shines into the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
With the passage of days in this godly isolation [desert], my heart grew calm. It seemed to fill with answers. I did not ask questions any more; I was certain. Everything - where we came from, where we are going, what our purpose is on earth - struck me as extremely sure and simple in this God-trodden isolation. Little by little my blood took on the godly rhythm. Matins, Divine Liturgy, vespers, psalmodies, the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the constellations suspended like chandeliers each night over the monastery: all came and went, came and went in obedience to eternal laws, and drew the blood of man into the same placid rhythm. I saw the world as a tree, a gigantic poplar, and myself as a green leaf clinging to a branch with my slender stalk. When God's wind blew, I hopped and danced, together with the entire tree.
— Nikos Kazantzakis
I warn you, the trip will not be easy. Once you choose to walk in the light, your path will lead you places you do not want to go.
— Dave Wolverton, The Courtship of Princess Leia
Love, I'm pretty sure, is light.
— Jan Zwicky, Songs for Relinquishing the Earth
The light was only just visible - except of course that there was no one to see, no witnesses, not this time, but it was nevertheless a light.
— Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
A man who refuses light will remain in the darkness even by the side of light!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.
— Leo Tolstoy
Who says you cannot hold the moon in your hand?Tonight when the stars come out and the moon rises in the velvet sky, look outside your window, then raise your hand and position your fingers around the disk of light.There you go . . . That was easy!
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
The light of day showed you the limits of possibility. But walk through the dark, the absolute, total darkness, and the possibilities were limitless.
— Michael  Grant, Fear
This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is only more darkness. Darkness can exist by itself. Light cannot.
— N.K. Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms
sick of it whatever it's called sick of the namesI dedicate every pore to what's here
— Ikkyu
When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light—so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness.
— Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
LightThat's how I feel-like the winter-fringedbreeze might scoopme up into its wings,flyaway with me trappedin its feathered embrace.I am a snowflake.A wisp of eiderdown,liberatedfrom gravity. My bodyis light. Ephemeral.My head is light.I want to swaybeneaththe weight of air,dizzy with thought.Light filters throughmy closed eyelids.The sun,chasing shadows,tells me I'm notafloat in dreams.
— Ellen Hopkins
Tom shut his eyes again, because when his eyes were shut, he could tell himself that there was light.
— N.D. Wilson, Leepike Ridge
Simplicity is, as simple as you make it.
— Anthony Liccione
A beetle will chase after an opening of light, while a cockroach will scatter at a crack of it. How are we different from insects? Nobody is purely good or purely evil. Most of us are in-between. There are moths that explore the day and butterflies that play at night. Polarity is an integral part of nature — human or not human.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
A man typically lights a scene too much, because it makes no matter what you show, a man always wants to see more. A woman understands darkness and shadows
— Richard Melo, Happy Talk: A Novel
While she was light and sunshine, he was nothing but clouds and darkness.
— Victoria Michaels, Trust in Advertising
The awakening is the purpose. The awakening of the fact that in essence we are light, we are love. Each cell of our body, each cell and molecule of everything. The power source that runs all life is light. So to awaken to that knowledge, and to desire to operate in that realm, and to believe that it is possible, are all factors that will put you there.
— Dolores Cannon, The Convoluted Universe - Book One
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.
— Grateful Dead
There are even some stars so remote that their light will reach the Earth only when Earth itself is a dead planet, as they themselves are dead, so that the living Earth will never be visited by that forlorn ray of light, without a living source, without a living destination. Often on fine nights when the park of this establishment is vacant, I amuse myself with this marvelous instrument (telescope). I go upstairs, walk across the grass, sit on a bench in the Avenue of Oaks – and there, in my solitude, I enjoy the pleasure of weighing the rays of dead stars.
— Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Tomorrow's Eve
The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offshore Lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind.
— M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans
Don't worry about it, Borage. I've always been inclined to think that the Apostle Paul was similarly afflicted. He speaks often of a bodily weakness, and men have been at pains to name it, attibuting to him everything from lameness to lung sickness. But I think the clue lies in his experience on the road to Damascus. Tell me, do you see a great light?Dr. Trudgett
— Norah Lofts, Bless This House
Light is colder when there are parts of it missing.
— Olli Jalonen
It requires no special talent to be a shadow; but to be a light, you need to be burning inwardly!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.
— Neal Shusterman, Unwind
If we only look within, we will see he Light as if we were seeing our own image in a mirror. (122)
— Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras
Out of sight above the house, the mirror moon reflected the sun of a day not yet dawned, shining the pale light of tomorrow on the yard and on the paper birches.
— Dean Koontz, Breathless
...light overcomes darkenss. A tiny match can illuminate the darkest room. As long as there is some light somewhere in the universe, [darkness] can be defeated.
— Dave Barry
It was still early, and the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet.
— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Who can be close to you without the Divine Light of his heart?
— Sorin Cerin, Wisdom Collection: The Book of Wisdom
Light's all very well, brothers, but it's not easy to live with.
— Mikhail Zoshchenko
Even the rain in its night singing, / the night rain in its forgetting, / is a kind of light.
— Jan Zwicky, Thirty-Seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences
Light can devour the darkness but darkness cannot consume the light.
— Ken Poirot
When I feel the heat, I see the light.
— Everett Dirksen
Esk felt that bravery was called for, but on a night like this bravery lasted only as long as a candle stayed alight.
— Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
The great hall was shimmering in light, sun streaming from the open windows, and ablaze with colour, the walls decorated with embroidered hangings in rich shades of gold and crimson. New rushes had been strewn about, fragrant with lavender, sweet woodruff, and balm... the air was... perfumed with honeysuckle and violet, their seductive scents luring in from the gardens butterflies as blue as the summer sky.
— Sharon Kay Penman, Devil's Brood
When yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hairlike lines.
— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
There was a man here, lashed himself to a spar as his ship went down, and for seven days and seven nights he was on the sea, and what kept him alive while others drowned was telling himself stories like a madman, so that as one ended another began. On the seventh day he had told all the stories he knew and that was when he began to tell himself as if he were a story, from the earliest beginnings to his green and deep misfortune. The story he told was of a man lost and found, not once, but many times, as he choked his way out of the waves. And the night fell, he saw the Cape Wrath light, only lit a week it was, but it was, and he knew that if he became the story of the light, he might be saved. With his last strength he began to paddle towards it, arms on either side of the spar, and in his mind the light became a shining rope, pulling him in. He took hold of it, tied it round his waist, and at that moment, the keeper saw him, and ran for the rescue boat.
— Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping
Freeze, freeze in the winter, if you really want to appreciate the summer! Walk, walk at the edge of the precipices, if you rightly want to learn the meaning of the safety! Switch the lights off, if you want to see the amazing beauty of the light!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you have a light, share it with people; if you have a darkness, share it with the Sun!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
Master Plato once said that Lux est umbra Dei
—  light is the shadow of God. I say this way: Light is the god of shadow!