"The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game."

Beecher, Henry Ward | Cynics and Cynicism | 3 bookmarks

"How like a winter hath my absence been. From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, What old December's bareness everywhere!"

Shakespeare, William | Absence | 9 bookmarks

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity."

Santayana, George | Death and Dying | 8 bookmarks

"The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to the another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own travelling brotherhood."

Stark, Freya | Life and Living | 1 bookmarks

"We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear."

Hussein, King | Truth | 1 bookmarks

"Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities -- always see them, for they're always there."

Peale, Norman Vincent | Possibilities | 1 bookmarks

"With their souls of patent leather, they come down the road. Hunched and nocturnal, where they breathe they impose, silence of dark rubber, and fear of fine sand."

Lorca, Federico Garcia | Police | 1 bookmarks

"We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen."

Merton, Thomas | Failure | 1 bookmarks

"The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness."

Canetti, Elias | Crime and Criminals | 1 bookmarks

"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other."

Bacon, Francis | Fear | 4 bookmarks