Candles

solid block of wax with embedded wick

Candles are a traditional method of providing illumination, now superseded for most purposes by electric lightbulbs.

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
And the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~ Gautama Buddha

Quotes

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Tis nothing but a magic shadow-show,
Played in a box whose candle is the sun.
~ Edward Fitzgerald
 
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: the morning daylight appears plainer when you put out your candle.
~ Benjamin Franklin
 
I believe that it is better to light one candle than to promise a million light bulbs.
~ Stephen Harper
 
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
 
Every moment age is creeping up stealthily,
but life, life is melting down
like a candle that is flickering around.
~ Suman Pokhrel
 
Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on.
~ William Shakespeare
 
With all reverence, I would say, let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier, quoting or parhaphrasing Abraham Davenport
Alphabetized by author
  • All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.
  • Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
    And the life of the candle will not be shortened.

    Happiness never decreases by being shared.
  • Some say, that Signor Bononcini,
    Compared to Handel's a mere ninny;
    Others aver, to him, that Handel
    Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
    Strange! that such high dispute should be
    'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
    • John Byrom, On the Feuds between Handel and Bononcini.
  • They say rather than cursing the darkness, one should light a candle. They don't mention anything about cursing a lack of candles.
  • His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends"
  • No, not dead. But the candle in that great turnip has gone out.
  • I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.
  • 'Tis nothing but a magic shadow-show,
    Played in a box whose candle is the sun
  • The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason: the morning daylight appears plainer when you put out your candle.
    • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758), Chapter "On Virtue, Vice, God, And Faith".
  • I believe that it is better to light one candle than to promise a million light bulbs.
  • He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
  • And it seems to me you lived your life
    Like a candle in the wind
  • It is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to shew light at Calais.
    • Samuel Johnson, of Thomas Sheridan's influence on the English language; reported in Boswell's Life of Johnson (28 July 1763).
  • We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as (I trust) shall never be put out.
    • Hugh Latimer, just before his execution by burning; quoted by John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (1570) p. 1937.
  • To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
  • On the Coast of Coromandel
    Where the early pumpkins blow,
    In the middle of the woods
    Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò.
    Two old chairs, and half a candle,
    One old jug without a handle,
    These were all his worldly goods
  • My candle burns at both ends;
    It will not last the night;
    But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
    It gives a lovely light.
  • This ambiance of candlelight reminds of nights that traveled its way, in entangled embrace of yours and mine.
  • Every moment age is creeping up stealthily,
    but life, life is melting down
    like a candle that is flickering around.
  • Death is shaping up slowly and quietly
    but life, life is melting down
    like a candle that is flickering all night.
  • The light that shines at the wick of a tallow candle is made of fire and related to the light of sacred lamps.
    • Grace Rhys, The Quest of the Ideal (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1913), p. 37.
  • Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back,
    When gold and silver becks me to come on.
  • Out, out, brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.
  • Thus hath the candle singed the moth.
  • In winter I get up at night,
    And dress by yellow candle-light.
    In summer quite the other way
    I have to go to bed by day.
  • The candle by which she had been reading the book filled with trouble and deceit, sorrow and evil, flared up with a brighter light, illuminating for her everything that before had been enshrouded in darkness, flickered, grew dim, and went out forever.
    • Leo Tolstoy trans. Rosemary Edmonds, Anna Karenina, part 7, chapter 31.
  • A single candle can lit a thousand candles without losing anything. [...] Let us be like those shining candles [...] benefitting all sentient beings.
  • Denunciatory rhetoric is so much easier and cheaper than good works, and proves a popular temptation. Yet it is far better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
    • William Lonsdale Watkinson, "The Invincible Strategy" in The Supreme Conquest and Other Sermons (1907)
  • "This well may be
    The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
    But be it so or not, I only know
    My present duty, and my Lord's command
    To occupy till He come.
    So at the post
    Where He hath set me in His providence,
    I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, —
    No faithless servant frightened from my task,
    But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
    And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
    Let God do His work, we will see to ours.
    Bring in the candles.
    " And they brought them in.
  • How commentators each dark passage shun,
    And hold their farthing candle to the sun
    • Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-1728), Satire vii, Line 97.
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