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Quotes About Light

In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light.
~ Thomas Hobbes
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame. s
~ Thomas Hobbes
I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance. Even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In, short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these and all who work for them.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance....The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Aber für ihn war Musik - Musik, wenn es eben nur welche war, und gegen das Wort von Goethe: 'Die Kunst beschäftigt sich mit dem Schweren und Guten' fand er einzuwenden, daß das Leichte auch schwer ist, wenn es gut ist, was es ebensowohl sein kann wie das Schwere. Davon ist etwas bei mir hängengeblieben, ich habe es von ihm. Allerdings habe ich ihn immer dahin verstanden, daß man sehr sattelfest sein muß im Schweren und Guten, um es so mit dem Leichten aufzunehmen.
~ Thomas Mann
I can imagine Herr Settembrini coming in suddenly and turning on the light, to let reason and convention reign—it is a weakness of his.
~ Thomas Mann
The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear.
~ Thomas Merton
We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him.
~ Thomas Merton
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!
~ Thomas Merton
For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and nonbeing. You can tell yourself the time by their waking, if you are experienced. But that is your folly, not theirs.
~ Thomas Merton
The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines in it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in it.
~ Thomas Merton
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
~ Thomas Merton
One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.
~ Thomas Merton
The deepest need of our darkness is to comprehend the light which shines in the midst of it.
~ Thomas Merton
As a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun into a little burning knot of heat that can set fire to a dry leaf or a piece of paper, so the mystery of Christ in the Gospel concentrates the rays of God's light and fire to a point to set fire to the human spirit.
~ Thomas Merton
If we are called by God to holiness of life, and if holiness is beyond our natural power to achieve (which it certainly is) then it follows that God himself must give us the light, the strength, and the courage to fulfill the task he requires of us. He will certainly give us the grace we need.
~ Thomas Merton
only God's truth without limit, without defect, without stain. This clean light, which tastes of Paradise, is beyond all pride, beyond comment, beyond proprietorship, beyond solitude. It is in all and for all. It is the true light that shines in everyone, in every man coming into this world. It is the light of Christ, Who stands in the midst of us and we know Him not.
~ Thomas Merton
Tu qui sedes in tenebris spe tua gaude: orta stella matutina, sol non tardabit.
~ Thomas Merton
he had communicated to me without words an interior light from God, about the condition of my own soul—although I wasn't even sure I had a soul.
~ Thomas Merton
As a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun into a little burning knot of heat that can set fire to a dry leaf or a piece of paper, so the mystery of Christ in the Gospel concentrates the rays of God's light and fire to a point that sets fire to the spirit of man.
~ Thomas Merton
Behind the walls of his isolation, his intelligence and his will, unimpaired, and not hampered in any essential way by the partial obstruction of some of his senses, were turned to God, and communed with God Who was with him and in him, and Who gave him, as I believe, light to understand and to make use of his suffering for his own good, and to perfect his soul.
~ Thomas Merton
We enter into possession of God when He invades all our faculties with His light and His infinite fire. We do not "possess" Him until He takes full possession of us.
~ Thomas Merton
But nevertheless, no man who seeks liberation and light in solitude, no man who seeks spiritual freedom, can afford to yield passively to all the appeals of a society of salesmen, advertisers and consumers.
~ Thomas Merton
We know by fresh discovery, the deep reality that is our concrete existence here and now and in the depths of that reality we receive from the Father light, truth, wisdom and peace.
~ Thomas Merton