Shadow Quotes

“But think how brightly you might have burned if you hadn’t always walked in shadow.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves

“It was everything that made me want to be a sun, the only thing I knew that had no shadow.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive lustre to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity. . . . we do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colours and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them".”
― Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

“I looked up through a scatter of fluttering leaves silhouetted against the rosy autumn sunset.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“We tell stories using light. We tell stories using shadows. That's it.”
― Merlin Schönfisch

“It is not a lack of intelligence that holds people back the most. It is fear — often initially caused by repressed traumatic experiences they had gone through when younger. Without bringing these ancient traumas — embodied in their ‘shadow’ — from the darkness to the light, healing remains but a wishful thinking. The “poor little me” mindset manages to hijack their inner beings, rendering them unable to face their own perceived boundaries and limitations, which naturally also makes them unable to transcend them. Fear, you see, remains the driving force behind many harmful behaviours in life. “Let go or be dragged” as the Zen proverb reminds us.”
― Omar Cherif

“Unfortunately there is no doubt about the fact that man is, as a whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
― Carl Jung

“My shadow said to me, ‘what if I told you that I am your soul.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“My feet scuffed through the golden leaves carpeting the wide sidewalks. Sunlight and shadow danced on ivy-covered walls.”
― Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

“Once you’ve accepted all of yourself you won’t have anything left to fear.”
― Kris Franken, The Call of Intuition

“Face the sun if you fear the shadows. To live free learn to live with the shadows.

IF YOU DISLIKE THE SHADOWS YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE TO FACE THE SUN.”
― Vineet Raj Kapoor

“Where this living death doesn't exist, life takes its place. Just as the person who loses his shadow becomes the shadow of himself.
('The shadow of himself - that would be a fine title. With the subtitle: 'Memoirs of a double life'.)”
― Jean Baudrillard, The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact

“Thought, too, while scattering its traces, leaves the literalness of the world intact, leaves intact the pure literalness of objects, though it sends their meaning up in smoke.
Shadowing the world - following the word like its shadow to cover up its tracks and to show that, behind its supposed ends, it is going nowhere.
It is in this way that thought connects up with the event of the world - not with the occurrence of a totality that is nowhere to be found, but with the occurrence of the world as it is, in its unpredictable coming-to-pass.
It is in this way that we attain to the literalness, the material imagining, of the world, by the elimination of whatever obstacle may be between the image and the gaze.”
― Jean Baudrillard, The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact

“Does such a thing as “the fatal flaw,” that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature”
― Donna Tartt

“The late-afternoon sun was casting shadows that tip-toed along the walls”
― Jen Calonita, Conceal, Don't Feel

“If you've seen a shadow and haven't been able to find its owner, or if you've seen a person but haven't been able to find his shadow, then you have good reason to be afraid!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Shadows are the ones who rejoice the most at the sunrise, because there is no shadow in the darkness!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Eu sou a escuridão que cria
a minha própria sombra.

I am the darkness that creates
my own shadow.”
― Sonja N. Bohm, Poems from the Garden

“Nimic nu este viu, natural, carne, sânge, substanță. Totul este imagine, lumină, umbră. Lumea asta există atât cât este reflectată, este un produs derivat, secund. Nici Diavolul nu are existență, e numai aparență.”
― Stelian Tănase, Skepsis

“If you don't have a shadow then you're a shadow because only shadows don't have shadows!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The newspaper was always behind the news, not in front. You shouldn't ever go to the papers for information. They usually printed what they thought people wanted to see, and they had no explanation to give. It wasn't the king they saw. That wasn't the king at all. It was the king's shadow. [...] The shadow king was a part of the English tradition. The English, the boy said, were fond of shadows. [...] Somebody asked if you were ever talking to a real man or a shadow when you talked to an Englishman [...] Some of them were the man and the shadow at the same time, but more shadow than man. [...] It was always difficult to distinguish between the man and the shadow, and sometimes it was all shadow. (p.49)”
― George Lamming

“A shadow does not need the object to which it belongs to move for it to move.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The "Mona Lisa" is an optical illusion created by Leonardo Da Vinci.

The woman in the painting "The Mona Lisa" doesn't appear to be always smiling.

When you look at her mouth you feel she looks sad, melancholic, and hostile. But when you look at her eyes you feel she is happy and cheerful.

Leonardo perfected the "sfumato technique," which translated literally from Italian means "vanished or evaporated." He created imperceptible transitions between light and shade, and sometimes between colors.

"Why the Silhouette?" appears as a simple story of a few individuals, but when you look at it from a distance, it appears to show you the philosophy of life.

I have tried to create imperceptible transitions between light and darkness and sometimes between colors.

Hope you see the illusion in "Why the Silhouette?”
― Avijeet Das, Why the Silhouette?

“If you don't love your shadow, it means you don't love yourself either!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“For the first step he was only a dark cloud in the suggestion of a human form. Then blobs of darkness branched into fingers and frayed into hairs; they lingered and then grew solid. When he stood at the foot of my bed, he looked almost like a normal man, living and breathing and corporeal. Almost: for he was still formed in shades of gray. His tattered coat was the color of slate, his skin was milky white, his hair was pale silver-gray. Only his eyes were colored, such a deep blue as I had never seen before, their pupils round and human.
His face was sculpted into exactly the same lovely shape as Ignifex's. But without the crimson cat eyes, without any arrogance or mockery in the lines of his face or the way that he stood.”
― Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty

“And I hate him because he's a fool and a coward and he tries to steal my wives."
Those last words were so unexpected that I laughed. Then Ignifex raised an eyebrow and I realized that he was serious, at least as much as he ever was.
"What? Don't tell me he hasn't kissed you yet. You're no Helen or Aphrodite, but you aren't plain."
I remembered last night and my face went hot. Sure he could see the truth on my face, I blurted the first thing that came into my mind.
"And you would know so much about women, locked up in your castle."
"Locked up with eight wives. And sometimes I make house calls for my bargainers. There's many a lovely woman desperate enough to bargain with me."
This idea had never occurred to me before. "You touch another woman and I'll cut your hands off," I snapped.
He looked delighted. "I thought you were afraid of hurting me."
There was nothing I could say without making it worse, so I glared at him until he laughed and said, "I've never struck that kind of bargain. Though it's nice to know you're jealous."
I crossed my arms. The key hidden in the front of my dress dug into my skin, reminding me I was here for more than bickering.
"How is Shade a coward?" I asked.
"Now I'm jealous."
"Don't worry, you're still the only one I want to kill. Why do you call him a fool and a coward if he's never been anything but your obedient shadow?"
"He's plenty disobedient. Do you think I tell him to go around kissing my wives?" He caught at my chin. "They say that if you want a thing done well--"
I slapped his hand away. "If he's just your shadow, isn't it ridiculous to compete with him? And how do you know he's a coward?"
Ignifex's eyes widened a fraction. "He's a coward and a fool," he repeated distantly, as if he had learnt the words by rote. Then his gaze snapped back to me. "Why shouldn't I know my own shadow?"
"He got better than you at kissing somehow," I said. "Don't you ever wonder how?”
― Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty

“Unlike their owners, shadows are never hostile to each other, and when they get the chance, the two shadows immediately merge with the other!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Aye, that was him in a nutshell, veiled in secrets and stories, dark smuts that would either stick or be cleaned away. In the semidarkness, he was more shadow than person, more darkness than light. The devil was incarnate, sitting opposite, making secret pacts with her, asking her to sign over her soul.”
― Karen Brooks, The Chocolate Maker's Wife

“Remember.

Bad benefit from good, and good from bad.

Shadow benefit from light, and light from shadow.

Death benefit from life, and life from death.

As a tree branching out, as above and so below.”
― Monariatw

“The shadow that walks in front of its owner starts to think of himself as a great guide!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan