False Lights

Famous quotes containing the words false lights, false and/or lights:

    In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
    In spite of false lights on the shore,
    Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
    Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
    Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
    Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
    Are all with thee,—are all with thee!
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)

    Whereas the comic confronts simply logical contradictions, the tragic confronts a moral predicament. Not minor matters of true and false but crucial questions of right and wrong, good and evil face the tragic character in a tragic situation.
    —Marie Collins Swabey. Comic Laughter, ch. 7, Yale University Press (1961)

    Thus while I sit and sigh the day
    With all his borrow’d lights away,
    Till night’s black wings do overtake me,
    Thinking on thee, thy beauties then,
    As sudden lights do sleepy men,
    So they by their bright rays awake me.
    Sir John Suckling (1609–1642)