Quotes & Sayings About Luster

Gold, for the instant, lost its luster in his eyes, for there were countless treasures of the heart which it could never purchase — Charles Dickens

They leaned towards him, like flowers to the sun, drinking in his luster. It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all. — Madeline Miller

It is the devil's greatest triumph when he can deprive us of the joy of the Spirit. He carries fine dust with him in little boxes and scatters it through the cracks in our conscience in order to dim the soul's pure impulses and its luster. But the joy that fills the heart of the spiritual person destroys the deadly poison of the serpent. But if any are gloomy and think that they are abandoned in their sorrow, gloominess will continuously tear at them or else they will waste away in empty diversions. When gloominess takes root, evil grows. If it is not dissolved by tears, permanent damage is done. — Francis Of Assisi

Life, in her experience, had a kind of velvet luster. You looked at yourself from one perspective and all you saw was weirdness. Move your head a little bit, though, and everything looked reasonably normal. — Jonathan Franzen

A person who prematurely believes that they comprehend the Tao sees only its external luster, and this is the beginning of delusion. — Lao-Tzu

She was never without dark glasses, she was always well groomed, there was a consequential good taste in the plainness of her clothes, the blues and grays and lack of luster that made her, herself, shine so. — Truman Capote

There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been! — Percy Bysshe Shelley

His own mortality held only an intellectual fascination for him, a dry luster; and, having no religion, he did not believe in ghosts. — Eleanor Catton

Beauty is a luster which love bestows to guile the eye. Therefore it may be said that only when the brain is without love will the eye look and see no beauty. — Jack Vance

Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. — Lord Chesterfield

I loved the flash of jewels and the luster of satin. In those days women dressed. — Elizabeth Enright

I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am sincerely proud to be able to make - and glad, as well, that my comrades cordially endorse it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have seen in France were born and reared in America. I feel now like a man who has redeemed a failing reputation and shed luster upon a dimmed escutcheon, by a single just deed done at the eleventh hour. Let the curtain fall, to slow music. — Mark Twain

Sloppy language and sloppy ways go together. Those who are truly educated have learned more than the sciences, the humanities, law, engineering, and the arts. They carry with them a certain polish that marks them as loving the better qualities of life, a culture that adds luster to the mundane world of which they are apart, a patina that puts a quiet glow on what otherwise might be base metal. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Perhaps this was indeed the way so remarkably accomplished a man was destined to meet his end,' he replied, 'because two or three years ago he began looking very downcast and melancholy, and I often warned him, despite my own want of sense, that a man who sees too far into life and thinks about things too deeply becomes too detached from them and to be attractive and only loses whatever luster he may have had, but he seemed merely to find my opinion shallow. — Murasaki Shikibu

Luster, bring me home. — Bruce Coville

Social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. — Douglas Rushkoff

I burnt for the more active life of the world--for the more exciting toils of a literary career--for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds--my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. — Charlotte Bronte

How thankful I am, how thankful we all must be, for the women in our lives. God bless them. May His great love distill upon them and crown them with luster and beauty, grace and faith. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Individuals may wear for a time the glory of our institutions, but they carry it not to the grave with them. Like raindrops from heaven, they may pass through the circle of the shining bow and add to its luster; but when they have sunk in the earth again, the proud arch still spans the sky and shines gloriously on. — James A. Garfield

It warms the blood, adds luster to the eyes, and wine and love have ever been allies. — Ovid

I ne'er could any luster seeIn eyes that would not look on me. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

A few years after 'Melrose Place,' when the luster of 'Melrose Place' wore off and what was left was just the stink, and I was just doing bad TV movies, that was a personal low point. I felt I needed to stop doing those, and I did. — Grant Show

It is true there is nothing displays a genius, I mean a quickness of genius, more than a dispute; as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other's luster. But perhaps the odds is much against the man of taste in this particular. — William Shenstone

Addressing the Columbia crew after winning the intercollegiate regatta: I congratulate you most heartily upon the splendid victory you have won, and the luster you have shed upon the name of Columbia College. I thank you for the Faculty of the College, for the manifest service you have done to this institution ... I am convinced that in one day or in one summer, you have done more to make Columbia College known than all your predecessors have done since the foundation of the college by this, your great triumph. — Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard

Would I still feel this way on leaving the party tonight? Or would I find cunning ways to latch on to minor defects so they'd start to bother me and allow me to snuff the dream till it tapered off and lost its luster and, with its luster gone, remind me once again, as ever again, that happiness is the one thing that in our lives others cannot bring. — Andre Aciman

Those great and glorious actions that dazzle our eyes with their luster are represented by statesmen as the result of great wisdomand excellent design; whereas, in truth, they are commonly the effects of the humors and passions. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Love is when Looking at a glance at you
I found laughter in my eyes, Thoughts turns into jewels Where luster of your aura dwells — Seema Gupta

A grub in filth is dirty, but it changes into a cicada and sips dew in the autumn breeze. Rotting plants have no luster, but they turn into foxfire and glow in the summer moonlight. So we know that purity emerges from impurity, and light is born from darkness. — Zicheng Hong

The April night on which Sammy felt most aware of the luster of his existence - the moment when, for the first time in his life, he was fully conscious of his own happiness - was a night that he would never discuss with anyone at all. — Michael Chabon

Tell me the word that will win you, and I will speak it. I will speak the stars of heaven into a crown for your head; I will speak the flowers of the field into a cloak; I will speak the racing stream into a melody for your ears and the voices of a thousand larks to sing it; I will speak the softness of night for your bed and the warmth of summer for your coverlet; I will speak the brightness of flame to light your way and the luster of gold to shine in your smile; I will speak until the hardness in you melts away and your heart is free ... — Stephen R. Lawhead

As in nature, as in art, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their luster. — Thomas Guthrie

There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child. — Max Von Sydow

Luster returned, wearing a stiff new straw hat with a colored band and carrying a cloth cap. The hat seemed to isolate Luster's skull, in the beholder's eye as a spotlight would, in all its individual planes and angles. So peculiarly individual was its shape that at first glance the hat appeared to be on the head of someone standing immediately behind Luster. — William Faulkner

What we once found thrilling, we now take for granted - exotic foods, illicit drugs, attractive sex partners. The more you get, the more you want. So things that make us feel good in the moment are doomed to lose some of their luster. Although there's nothing inherently wrong with feeling good in the moment, continually seeking more is obviously not the best path to happiness. — Anonymous

The space elevator's not just another competitive technology, promoted by people who simply like the idea of diminishing the luster of the thrusters. It would open wide the doors to space. — Seth Shostak

It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment - but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer? — Lord Byron

When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is as good as that made from hemp. Chopped up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals gives a luster to their skin; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow dye. It makes, however, excellent hay, as it can be cut twice in a season. And what does the nettle need? very little soil, no care, no culture; except that the seeds fall as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gather them; that is all. If we would take a little pains, the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. How much men are like the nettle! My friends, remember this, that there are no weeds, and no worthless men, there are only bad farmers. — Victor Hugo

Crossed the room to where a selection of implements was arranged on a table top. These could have been mistaken for the trade tools of a cook, physician, or torturer, save for the fact that the surface on which they rested was a slab of polished pink marble, topping a white and gilt dressing table-cum-sculpture, done up in the new, hyper-Baroque style named Rococo. It was adorned, for example, with several cherubs, bows drawn, eyes asquint, as they drew beads on unseen targets, butt cheeks polished to a luster with jeweler's rouge. It had, in other words, all the earmarks of a gift that had been sent to the princess by someone with a lot of money who did not know her very well. — Neal Stephenson

I clasped his face in both hands as I kissed him. "You don't know how I need you, how I love you, how I always have," I whispered in his ear. Maybe he would find me more charming on account of what's befallen me - the unexpected horror I've seen, the inevitable pain I've endured. It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater luster to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit. — Anne Rice

When you're a young man like yourself, life is full of wonders. Everything new. Everything an adventure. But as the years roll on, things become ordinary. Colors lose their vibrance. Stars lose their glitter. You become less in awe of the world. It loses its magic.

I don't see this as a painful thing. I think it's a mercy. I believe it's all just so it makes it easier to let the whole thing go when it's our time to pass on. But when you've lived as long as I have, the weight of the years and the tarnished luster of the world can break you down. And it's hard to be alive and be so broken. — Eric Powell

People adored Element 13's color and luster, which reminded them of the sparkle of gold and silver - a brand-new precious metal. In fact, aluminum became more precious than gold and silver in the 19th century because it was harder to obtain. — Sam Kean

The chief advantage which these fictions have over real life is, that their authors are at liberty, though not to invent, yet to select objects, and to cull from the mass of mankind, those individuals upon which the attention ought most to be employed; as a diamond, though it cannot be made, may be polished by art, and placed in such a situation, as to display that luster which before was buried among common stones. — Samuel Johnson

Or perhaps is is that time doesn't heal wounds at all, perhaps that is the biggest lie of them all, and instead what happens is that each wound penetrates the body deeper and deeper until one day you find that the sheer geography of your bones - the angle of your hips, the sharpness of your shoulders, as well as the luster of your eyes, the texture of your skin, the openness of your smile - has collapsed under the weight of your griefs. — Thrity Umrigar

At most, a hundred paces separated him from them. The powerful beast, seeing the riders and horses, rose on his fore paws and began to gaze at them. The sun, which now stood low, illuminated his huge head and shaggy breasts, and in that ruddy luster he was like one of those sphinxes which ornament the entrances to ancient Egyptian temples. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

The Golden State has lost its luster. We've got to change our tax system and how we fund government. We're going to have to make it easier to create jobs in California, incentivize manufacturing, really put more in the way of investment in our public school system and our institutions of higher learning if we're going to stay the Golden State. — Antonio Villaraigosa

For him, too, starting over, departures, a new life had a certain luster, but he knew that only the impotent and the lazy attach happiness to such things. Happiness implied a choice, and within that choice a concerted will, a lucid desire. He could hear Zagreus: "Not the will to renounce, but the will to happiness. — Albert Camus

A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no luster as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

And you, good yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, shew us here The metal of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not, For there is none of you so mean and base That hath not noble luster in your eyes. (Act 3, Sc. 1.) The rank and file always fare well before a battle. — William Shakespeare

When you become too predictable you lose your brand's luster. — Bernard Kelvin Clive

The music as always had a dark sweet luster, but it was more than ever like an endless beginning-a theme ever building to a climax which would never come. — Anne Rice

It had been a winter of deadening seriousness, when all the illusions and bright dreams of my early twenties had withered and died. I did not yet have the interior resources to dream new dreams; I was far too busy mourning the death of the old ones and wondering how I was to survive without them. I was sure I could replace them somehow , but was not sure I could restore their brassy luster or dazzling impress . — Pat Conroy

For me, the movies I like are all independent. And getting an independent feature made, it's like you get down to the selling organs part, and it just loses some of its luster. — Callie Khouri

It's not through words but actions that I want to set the luster on my life. — Sophocles

Old & New put their stamp to everything in Nature. The snowflake that is now falling is marked by both. The present moment gives the motion & the color of the flake: Antiquity, its form & properties. All things wear a luster which is the gift of the present & a tarnish of time. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: [152] they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when [153] the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another. There — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I find nothing in fables more astonishing than my experience in every hour. One moment of a man's life is a fact so stupendous as to take the luster out of fiction. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

This state lasted for six months, for six months I was truly happy, truly at home in this world and in myself before slowly it began to lose its luster, and once more the world moved out of my reach. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Though [Jesus'] words were profound, they were plain. His words were weighty, yet they shone with a luster and simplicity of statement that staggered His enemies. — Billy Graham

Every man who praises himself brushes the luster from his best efforts. — Ellen G. White

If you take life at face value, it loses its luster pretty quickly. If you go after it, you get more out of it. — Christopher Meloni

The greatest mission of woman is to give life, earth-life, through honorable marriage, to the waiting spirits, our Father's spirit children who anxiously desire to come to dwell here in this mortal state. All the honor and glory that can come to men and women is but a dim thing whose luster shall fade in comparison to the high honor, the eternal glory, the ever-enduring happiness that shall come to the woman who fulfils the first great duty and mission that devolves upon her to become the mother of the sons and daughters of God — Melvin J. Ballard

All great tasks test our motivation. It's easy to court ideas over beers and change the world with napkin sketches, but like most things taken home from bars, new challenges arise the next day. It's in the morning light when work begins, and grand ideas (or barroom conquests) lose their luster. To do interesting things requires work and it's no surprise we abandon demanding passions for simpler, easier, more predictable things. — Scott Berkun

Why allow all the old memories to have supremacy? Make new ones, memories of such luster and beauty that, should the old ones come back, they would be pallid and impotent in comparison. — Sherry Thomas

The luster of an experience can actually go up with time. So, learning to play a new instrument, learning a new language - those sorts of things will pay dividends for years or decades to come. — Dan Buettner

Thanks to the long days of rain, the blades of grass glowed with a deep-green luster, and they gave off the smell of wildness unique to things that sink their roots into the earth. — Haruki Murakami

Almsgiving above all else requires money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all. — Saint John Chrysostom

A shining star will never lose it's luster, because Christ causes it to shine! — Anita R. Sneed-Carter

I already began to inspire the men with love. My breast began to take its right form, and such a breast! white, firm, and formed like that of the Venus de' Medici; my eyebrows were as black as jet, and as for my eyes, they darted flames and eclipsed the luster of the stars, as I was told by the poets of our part of the world. My maids, when they dressed and undressed me, used to fall into an ecstasy in viewing me before and behind; and all the men longed to be in their places. — Voltaire

It is perhaps true that that sort of sexual energy wanes over time - as the original impetus loses its luster. And then, I suppose, it's on to the next thing. But eros is eternal, like joy. — Micheline Aharonian Marcom

You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens ... the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her ... a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little ... little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it's fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day. — Octave Mirbeau

Annabel played and sang it; she was the oldest of the sisters and the loveliest, though it was a chore to pick among them, for they were like quadruplets of unequal height. One thought of apples, compact and flavorful, sweet but cider-tart; their hair, loosely plaited, had the blue luster of a well-groomed ebony racehorse, and certain features, eyebrows, noses, lips when smiling, tilted in an original style that added humor to their charms. The nicest thing was that they were a bit plump: "pleasingly plump" describes it precisely. — Truman Capote

Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day after a storm when the smallest falling leaf is stabbed with self-awareness. The wind makes a sound in the pines and the world comes into being, irreversibly, and the spider rides the wind-swayed web. — Don DeLillo

Rising genius always shoots out its rays from among the clouds, but these will gradually roll away and disappear as it ascends to its steady luster. — Washington Irving

There, about a dozen times during the day, the wind drives over the sky the swollen clouds, which water the earth copiously, after which the sun shines brightly, as if freshly bathed, and floods with a golden luster the rocks, the river, the trees, and the entire jungle. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

But the fantasy kingdom and trappings of success soon lost their luster, as I discovered that the most prestigious and remunerative of my resume's way stations was also the most tedious and unfulfilling I had ever experienced. This paradox only made me more morose about modernity. Why was I going to watch my hairline recede in front of two-thousand-line spreadsheets staring at me from cold, glowing monitors? Why was everyone in my office apparently so happy to be spending so many hours there, when the things they really cared about - people, pets, pastimes - were all relegated to a few photographs on their desks? That seemed to be the formula: spend the best years of your life in an office with photos of what you really care about. — Zack Love

Even those who saw only a part of the country witnessed so much that was new to them - the vast deltas, the astonishingly eroded limestone peaks, the sand-dune coastal forests, the forest mosaics and savannalike grassland. Many wrote home with vivid descriptions of the flora and fauna, the countless species they had never seen before. Many commented on the sheer luster of the place, of the seemingly infinite number of shades of green, in the rice paddies, the grasses, the palms, the rubber trees with their green oval leaves, the pine trees on faraway hills. — Fredrik Logevall

Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

He had sleepless eyes, his mouth a little swollen, the deeply tanned skin somehow burnished. Kestrel thought that she, too, must look like this: polished by desire, the way a river stone holds a luster from having been made so smooth. — Marie Rutkoski

Our word choices give a sentence its luster, and they deserve intense attention. — Constance Hale

Even the greatest feats of man lose their luster when one's head is filled with storm clouds. — Susan Dennard

An honor prudently declined often returns with increased luster. — Livy

Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster. — Cyril Connolly

I have come to light the lamp of love in your hearts, to see that it shines day by day with added luster. — Sathya Sai Baba

She was a pretty girl, and I was moved by her prettiness. Her hair was brown at the verge of red, and curly. Her face was still a little freckled. But it was her eyes that most impressed me. They were nearly black and had a liquid luster. The brief, laughing look that she had given me made me feel extraordinarily seen, as if after that I might be visible in the dark. — Wendell Berry

He was pale as only one state on Bhast dictated - not lacking color necessarily or vitality, certainly. Fey white was more comparable to a pearl; the color subtle and the luster soft, but still vibrant. In spite of the tragedy that could come with it, it was not a dying state. It was a state of living ... sometimes much more brilliantly than people could cope with, including the Fey individuals themselves. — T.A. Miles

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear. — Daniel Defoe

The ideals and objectives of yesterday was still ideals of today, but they lost some of their luster and even, as one seemed to go towards them, they lost the shining beauty which had warmed the heart and vitalized the body. Evil triumphed often enough, but what was far worse was the coarsening and distortion of what seemed so right. Was human nature so essentially bad that it would take ages of training ,through suffering and misfortune, before it could behave reasonably and raise man above the creature of lust and violence and deceit that he now was? And, meanwhile , was every effort to change radically in the present or the near future doomed to failure — Jawaharlal Nehru

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON — Robert Greene

It's easy to create something that has a lot of luster, but it's very hard to make something that has a lot of depth. — John Dykstra

The plainer the dress, the greater luster does beauty appear. — E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl Of Halifax

A sparkling house is a fine thing if the children aren't robbed of their luster in keeping it that way. — Marcelene Cox

The light enkindled by human kindness and love can give human life a brilliance and luster that will never be extinguished. — Steve Centola

Had he imagined things in Charlotte that had never been there? Had he invented virtues for he, to add luster to her staggering looks? ... Perhaps he had created a Charlotte in her own image who had never existed outside his own besotted mind, but what of it? He had loved the real Charlotte too, the woman who had stripped herself bare in front of him, demanding whether he could still love her if she did this, if she confessed to this, if she treated him like this..until finally she had found his limit and beauty, rage and tears had been insufficient to hold him, and she had fled into the arms of another man. — Robert Galbraith

When you're a kid, nine times out of 10, everthing is pure depending on how you grow up. Everything is new as a kid, so it's all amazing and wonderful. But as we get older, things start to lose their luster or possibly their relevance. Things don't mean as much as they did then. I know the feeling. — Corey Taylor

The luster of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue. — Samuel Johnson

When malice has reason on its side, it looks forth bravely, and displays that reason in all its luster. When austerity and self-denial have not realized true happiness, and the soul returns to the dictates of nature, the reaction is fearfully extravagant. — Blaise Pascal

Nothing is as it seems. Black can appear white when the light is blinding but white loses all luster at the faintest sign of darkness. — Christopher Pike

Grief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere. — Honore De Balzac

Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom. — William Penn

Once upon a time the future was supposed to be brighter, shinier and more fun. When did that vision pass? When did the word 'new' lose it's luster? Now the past is supposed to hold the hopes we once confided to the future. We're directing attachments that used to go forward backward. — Ann Marlowe