Descent Into Darkness Quotes & Sayings

Wisdom can reveal the light hidden in dark times; but it requires that we face the darkness in ourselves. People may desire pearls of wisdom, yet most are unwilling to descend to the depths where the pearls wait to be found. Wisdom involves a necessary descent into the depths of life, for that alone can produce 'lived knowledge' and a unified vision. — Michael Meade

Oh you who are born of the gods, easy is the descent into Hell. The door of darkness stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps, and come back out into the brightness above, that is the work, that is the labor. — Virgil

PLAINVILLE WAS A QUAINT picturesque town. Northern California's version of Andy Griffith's Mayberry. Bucolic enough to provide cinematic contrast for any low-budget stalk-and-slash film. Juxtaposition played just as important a role in still photography as it did in cinematography. Maybe that's why Natalie Jones had picked Plainville for her final descent into darkness. The climactic scene in a comedic tragedy. Cast of one. Audience of one. Curtain closed. — Virna DePaul

Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread.
The hunters are hunted, white water runs red.
The Gnawers will strike to extinguish the rest.
The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest.
An Overland warrior, a son of the sun,
May bring us back light, he may bring us back none.
But gather your neighbors and follow his call
Or rats will most surely devour us all.
Two over, two under, of royal descent,
Two flyers, two crawlers, two spinners assent.
One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead.
And eight will be left when we count up the dead.
The last who will die must decide where he stands.
The fate of the eight is contained in his hands.
So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps,
As life may be death and death life again reaps. — Suzanne Collins

Because deception requires both bold lies and lies of omission, it stains the soul, muddies the conscience, blurs the vision, and puts you at risk of headlong descent into greater darkness. As a boy, I could not have put — Dean Koontz

She'd sworn she wouldn't end up like her little brother, but loneliness didn't arrive with flashing bulbs and a warning label. The descent was as simple and complex as a faked smile, white lies about being "okay," and the nod and acceptance as her own peers didn't delve deeper, shutting the coffin lid for her. — Katherine McIntyre

The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines. — Richard Rohr

I feel that writers think with their noses to the ground, and the dark stuff kind of comes to me more, even though I really am sort of an upbeat guy. It's an honest descent into darkness. And you can't have the joy without the grief - it's why we listen to Mozart's 'Requiem.' — Andre Dubus III

His mind was like the sea itself: troubled, and too deep for the bravest man's descent, throwing up now and again, for the naked eye to wonder at, treasure and debris long forgotten on the bottom - bones and jewels, fantastic shells, jelly that had once been flesh, pearls that had once been eyes. And he was at the mercy of this sea, hanging there with darkness all around him. — James Baldwin

I often wonder what kind of person I would be, had I been born in another country, century, or culture. Would I be the same person at heart, or is the heart I know merely the product of a lifetime of circumstances, experiences and relationships? Understanding the 'why' when it comes to human nature is immensely important, particularly when it comes to the villains in our lives. Knowing the subtle differences between hero and villain is to understand the tiny threads which hold the villain back from redemption, and which prevent the hero's own descent into darkness. — J. Swann

There is a 'movement' of meditation, expressing the basic 'paschal' rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in Christ. Sometimes prayer, meditation and contemplation are 'death' - a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance. Note how common this theme is in the Psalms. If we need help in meditation we can turn to scriptural texts that express this profound distress of man in his nothingness and his total need of God. Then as we determine to face the hard realities of our inner life and humbly for faith, he draws us out of darkness into light - he hears us, answers our prayer, recognizes our need, and grants us the help we require - if only by giving us more faith to believe that he can and will help us in his own time. This is already a sufficient answer. — Thomas Merton

What will happen to the flowers, now that you are gone? The earth that clings to the steps, the tulsi that begins to sprout. The colors that brighten the darkness of the stairs, the scents that perfume the air. Must I climb alone the petal-strewn trail of your descent? — Manil Suri

Outside on the sidewalk, I stop in my tracks. The sun is setting. It's like fire in the sky. Bright. Brilliant. Orange. The four guys stand with me in awed silence. They know how much Bright Side loved to watch the sunset. My smile grows as the sun makes its final descent and plunges us into darkness. Bright Side was definitely in charge tonight. "That's my girl. — Kim Holden

When you keep a secret from those closest to you, even with the best of motives, there is a danger that you will create a smaller life within your main life. The first secret will spin off other secrets that also must be kept, complicated webs of evasion that grow into elaborate architectures of repressed truths and subterfuge, until you discover that you must live two narratives at once. Because deception requires both bold lies and lies of omission, it stains the soul, muddies the conscience, blurs the vision, and puts you at risk of headlong descent into greater darkness. — Dean Koontz

According to the mystics, the obscure matter that creation presupposes is nothing other than divine potentiality. The act of creation is God's descent into an abyss that is simply his own potentiality and impotentiality, his capacity to and capacity not to ... In this context, "abyss" is not a metaphor ... It is the life of darkness in God, the divine root of Hell in which the Nothing is eternally produced. Only when we succeed in sinking into this Tartarus and experiencing our own impotentiality do we become capable of creating, truly becoming poets. — Giorgio Agamben

He pointed at Brother Jeremiah, who had come to a halt in front of a statue just slightly taller than he was, its base overgrown with moss. The statue was of an angel. The marble of the statue was so smooth it was almost translucent. The face of the angel was fierce and beautiful and sad. In long white hands the angel held a cup, its rim studded with marble jewels. Something about the statue tickled Clary's memory with an uneasy familiarity. There was a date inscribed on the base, 1234, and words inscribed around it: NEPHILIM: FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI.
"Is that meant to be the Mortal Cup?" she asked.
Jace nodded. "And that's the motto of the Nephilim - the Shadowhunters - there on the base."
"What does it mean?"
Jace's grin was a white flash in the darkness. "It means 'Shadowhunters: Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234.'"
"Jace - "
It means, said Jeremiah, The descent into Hell is easy. — Cassandra Clare

The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. — Joseph Conrad

There is no ascent to the heights without prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death. — Karen Armstrong