Dark Lantern Quotes & Sayings

In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a codega
a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons, bringing you confidence and protection through the dark streets. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The difficulty that accompanies you is less like the dark than a trusted lantern to see your way by. — Eudora Welty

But I can't see how anyone could believe that you killed the bear with a pitchfork,' I said.
'I didn't. I only wounded it - badly, I think, but not enough to put it out of action. It came blundering towards me, I stepped aside and it crashed head-first into the river - I could hear it threshing about in the darkness. I picked up a big stone - poor brute, I hated to do it but I had to finish it off. It gave just one groan as the stone hit it and then went down. I held the lantern high; I could see the bubbles coming up. And then I saw the dark bulk of it under the water, being carried along by the current.'
'But you didn't have a lantern,' I said.
'He didn't have a bear,' said Topaz. — Dodie Smith

On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished. — Charlotte Bronte

People are in the dark, they don't know what to do I had a little lantern, oh but it got blown out too. I'm reaching out my hand. I hope you are too. I just want to be in the dark with you. - GREG BROWN, "IN THE DARK WITH YOU" T — Neil Gaiman

And after, when we went outside to look at her finished lantern from the road, I said I liked the way her light shone through the face that flickered in the dark. - "Jack O'Lantern," Katrina Vandenberg from Atlas — John Green

Your humble light the fire of your mind blinds you: If you walk with a lantern in the dark you won't see the stars. — Hans Borli

Vimes, listening with his mouth open, wondered why the hell it was that dwarfs believed that they had no religion and no priests. Being a dwarf was a religion. People went into the dark for the good of the clan, and heard things, and were changed, and came back to tell ...
And then, fifty years ago, a dwarf tinkering in Ankh-Morpork had found that if you put a simple fine mesh over your lantern flame it'd burn blue in the presence of the gas but wouldn't explode. It was a discovery of immense value to the good of dwarfkind and, as so often happens with such discoveries, almost immediately led to a war.
"And afterwards there were two kinds of dwarf," said Cheery sadly. "There's the Copperheads, who all use the lamp and the patent gas exploder, and the Schmaltzbergers, who stick to the old ways. Of course we're all dwarfs," she said, "but relations are strained. — Terry Pratchett

Some men's wit is like a dark lantern, which serves their own turn and guides them their own way, but is never known (according to the Scripture phrase) either to shine forth before men, or to glorify their Father in heaven. — Alexander Pope

But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? The entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world
a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors. — Virginia Woolf

The problem [with genetic research] is, we're just starting down this path, feeling our way in the dark. We have a small lantern in the form of a gene, but the lantern doesn't penetrate more than a couple of hundred feet. We don't know whether we're going to encounter chasms, rock walls or mountain ranges along the way. We don't even know how long the path is. — Francis Collins

She went to the window and looked out. The ground fell away to a branch where willows burned lime green in the sunset. Dark little birds kept crossing the fields to the west like heralds of some coming dread. Below the branch stood the frame of an outhouse from which the planks had been stripped for firewood and there hung from the ceiling a hornetnest like a gross paper egg. The tinker returned from the cart with a lantern — Cormac McCarthy

Faith means living with uncertainty - feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark. — Dan Millman

Age before beauty, Mr. MacRieve. If you think you can fit."
"Only humans call me Mr. MacRieve."
"I'm not a human. So would you like me to call you Bowen, or Bowe for short?"
"Bowe is what my friends call me, so you doona."
"No problem. I have a slew of other more fitting names for you. Most of them end in er."
"You in the tunnel first."
"Don't you think it'd be unbecoming for me to be on my hands and knees in front of you? Besides, you don't need my lantern to see in the dark, and if you go first, you'll be sure to lose me and get to the prize first."
"I doona like anything, or anyone, at my back. And you'll have your little red cloak on, so I will no' be able to see anything about you that might be ... unbecoming."
"Twisting my words? I'll have you know that I am criminally cute - "
"Then why hide behind a cloak?"
"I'm not hiding. And I like to wear it. Fine. Beauty before age. — Kresley Cole

There was a leap of joy in him, like a flame lighting up in a dark lantern. At this moment he believed it was worth it. This moment of supreme beauty was worth all the wretchedness of the journey. It was always worth it. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." It was the central truth of existence, and all men knew it, though they might not know that they knew it. Each man followed his own star through so much pain because he knew it, and at journey's end all the innumerable lights would glow into one. — Elizabeth Goudge

No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees. — Carole Borges

At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took grandmother's hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly, 'Good woman!' He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather looked at me searchingly. 'The prayers of all good people are good,' he said quietly. — Willa Cather

From the Prize winning poem - UNBORN in the book Terra Affirmative.
Under the surface / her body is curled, / seed of the one race, / shell of the world. // She is thw waterfall, / she is the womb, / she is the bubble, /she is the tomb. // Her hair flows upward, / blood red of the birth. / Her arms are folded / deep into the earth. // She is the fern, / she is the bark, / she is the lantern, / she is the dark. // Her eyes burn the flame / of the old and the young. / Her breath is the name / of each branch of each lung. // She is the ingredient. / She is the blend. / She is the beginning. / She is the end. — Jay Woodman

Tis a far cry from home for a poor lonely thing,
O'er the deeps and wild waters of seas,
Where you can't hear your dear mother's voice softly sing
Like a breeze gently stirring the trees.
Come home, little one, wander back here someday,
I'll watch for you, each evening and morn,
Through all the long season 'til I'm old and grey
As the frost on the hedges at dawn.
There's a lantern that shines in my window at night,
I have long kept it burning for you,
It glows through the dark, like a clear guiding light,
And I know someday you'll see it, too.
So hasten back, little one, or I will soon be gone,
No more to see your dear face,
But I know that I'll feel your tears fall one by one,
On the flowers o'er my resting place. — Brian Jacques

The biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o'the wisp, the Jack o'lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire] beloved of poets, which lights up one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present. There's no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life. Yet I can't help wondering if it's a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen. — Stephen Fry

You are like a lantern swathed and covered, hidden away in a dark place. Yet the light shines; they could not put out the light. They could not hide you. — Ursula K. Le Guin

DEPARTURE
The horizon slopes away
The days are longer
Trip
A heart hops in a cage
A bird sings
It is going to die
Another door is going to open
At the end of the corridor
Where a star
Begins to shine
A dark-haired woman
The lantern of the departing train
("Departure") — Pierre Reverdy

The night was drawing in, and the house felt more and more like a glass cage, blasting its light blindly out into the dusk, like a lantern in the dark. I imagined a thousand moths circling and shivering, drawn inexorably to its glow, only to perish against the cold inhospitable glass. — Ruth Ware

I am a lantern, I glow bright
I break for day, and wait for night
Without me you'd be blind
You take me for granted every time
But now you can't see you set a spark
I come alive and rid out the dark
Now you see in the light useless tool
But go where you can't see and you're the fool

poem i wrote — Carlos Gimenez

You know, they did let you have that room," I said. "In fact, I think they're assuming you'll use it, as opposed to lingering in strange hallways."
She responded to me with, "Girl, I am bored outta my tits."
"Can we have one cross-country quest without talking about your tits?"
Her pretty dark eyes went narrow and thoughtful, and she caressed her cheek with a long fingernail colored jack-o'-lantern orange. After a thoughtful pause, she shook her head. "I don't
see how."
"I figured. — MaryJanice Davidson

One of the girls saw her, then did a double-take. Her eyes sparkled. Not a bright sparkle, but a dull, dark sparkle, like the twinkling of a lantern at the bottom of a deep well. Here's something fun, her eyes said. Here's something freakish. Let's play with it and see if we can make it cry. — Miyuki Miyabe

She shook her head in admiration. "You've thought of everything," she said. But Will looked up at her and shook his head solemnly.
"I doubt it," he said. "No matter how thoroughly you plan, no matter how much you think you know, you've never thought of everything. — John Flanagan

Great Light, Mover of all that is moving and at rest, be my Journey and my far Destination, be my Want and my Fulfilling, be my Sowing and my Reaping, be my glad Song and my stark Silence. Be my Sword and my strong Shield, be my Lantern and my dark Night, be my everlasting Strength and my piteous Weakness. Be my Greeting and my parting Prayer, be my bright Vision and my Blindness, be my Joy and my sharp Grief, be my sad Death and my sure Resurrection! — Stephen R. Lawhead

I dreamed about you sometimes.
In my dreams we were walking down Tenth Avenue together in the dark. You hadn't been shot after all, and we were both all right. I asked you if you were done, and you said yes, it was finished.
In my dreams the streetlights all went off as we walked past them, but I could still see perfectly clearly to the corner. There was heat and light pouring out of you like a lantern, shining down the sidewalk in front of us, filling the intersection with amazing white light. When I reached for your hand you let me keep it there and smiled. You kissed me one more time.
In my dreams I always knew that meant that I was about to wake up. The light spilling out of your face and eyes and skin blazed up higher, and you said you had to go.
You said it had to be this way.
You said you were a goddess of fire.

Life went on. It always did, and that summer was no exception. — Joe Schreiber

Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H. It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Fire+ Water= Blizzard Dragon or Cloud Dragon Fire + Plant= Spicy Dragon or Firebird Dragon Fire + Electric= Laser Dragon or Hot Metal Dragon Fire + Metal= Medieval Dragon or Steam punk Dragon Fire + Dark= Vampire Dragon or Dark Fire Dragon Water Dragon Hybrids Water + Earth = Mud Dragon Water + Fire = Cloud Dragon or Blizzard Dragon Water + Plant = Nenufar Dragon Water + Plant = Coral Dragon Water + Electric = Lantern Fish Dragon or Storm Dragon — Maple Tree Books

The fact is that one moves through life like someone moving with a lantern in a dark woods. A bit of the path ahead is illuminated, and a bit of the path behind. But the darkness follows hard on one's steps, and envelopes our trails as one proceeds. Were one to be able, as one never is, to retrace the steps by daylight, one would find that the terrain traversed bears, in reality, little relationship to what imagination and memory pictured. We are, toward the end of our lives, such different people, so far removed from the childhood figures with whom our identity links us, that the bond to those figures, like that of nations to their obscure prehistoric origins, is almost irrelevant. — George F. Kennan

Lee carried a tin lantern to light the way, for it was one of those clear early winter nights when the sky riots with stars and the earth seems doubly dark because of them. — John Steinbeck

Dearest, the dark will take a long span.
Get a lantern or torch ready in hand
To lighten the right path so that we can
Cautiously avoid thorns in the night.

(Navigator) — Siwakarn Patoommasoot

I expect someone lives there in secret, only coming in and out at night, with a dark lantern. We shall probably discover a gang of desperate criminals and get a reward. It's all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there was some mystery." "Daddy thought it must be the drains," said Polly. "Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations," said Digory. — C.S. Lewis

So many heroes are driven by destiny. Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, they were all chosen and born to heroism. Even with Batman, it doesn't feel like Bruce could do anything else. His whole life was leading him to become the Dark Knight. — Andrew Kreisberg

Hope is a helium balloon. It is a wish lantern set out into the dark sky of night. — Sharon Weil