Shadow Quotes

“The shadow is needed now more than ever. We heal the world when we heal ourselves, and hope shines brightest when it illuminates the dark.”
― Sasha Graham, Dark Wood Tarot

“Watching the morning break, I realize again that darkness doesn't kill the light—it defines it.”
― Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations

“People are afraid of shadows. People are even more afraid of being in the shadow. But without a shadow, life will be two dimensional.”
― Yoko Ono

“If you ever come back, I will tell you:

The sun is closer to you
than I will ever be.
So burn,
if you wish.
You will not
see the shadow of me
even if you become
the sun
yourself.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“Now is not the time for a fanciful dip into our shadow because it is sexy or fashionable. It is essential, now more than ever, to bravely gaze into the darkest chambers of our hearts. It is only with an honest appraisal of the seat of our souls that we can mend ourselves individually and collectively.”
― Sasha Graham, Dark Wood Tarot

“Strong natures – or should one rather call them weak? - do not like to be reminded of this [their unconscious nature], but prefer to think of themselves as heroes.”
― C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

“Everywhere that is not in shadows is reflecting the brilliance of the light”
― Jazz Feylynn

“And if you didn't like the situation you were stuck in, there was always the option of running away from yourself: running away from opinions, from your marriage, from your country, from old values, from trends that had otherwise meant so much yesterday. The problem was just that out there, among all the new, you found nothing of what you were looking for deep down inside, because tomorrow it would all be meaningless again. It had become an eternal and fruitless hunt for your own shadow, and that was pitiful.”
― Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Hanging Girl

“By learning to recognize when your own archetypes are taking over, it’s easier to observe when other people are living from their shadow selves.”
― Catherine Carrigan, Reading the Soul

“The Tao Te Ching says, “The enemy is a shadow you yourself cast.” The
shadow wanders our unregarded hours where we hold resentments,
where we are lost, when there is nothing and no one to blame, though we
keep on blaming. I often wonder what is the light that hits the ego, casting
out the shadow? It is gratitude. And if the ego is gone, as it is when we are
truly grateful, there is no one to cast a shadow. We can replace blame with
gratitude—in any circumstance. Blame builds up walls around the self and
points only outward. Gratitude opens the heart, dissolves the self, and
points everywhere.”
― Terrance Keenan, Zen Encounters with Loneliness

“Shadow is a very intelligent creature; he always finds a way to get our attention!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.”
― Dipa Sanatani, The Little Light

“Just as light is manifestion of itself and its other, that which is dark, and can only know itself by revealing that other, so too with the ego, which is only rrevealed to itself in so far as its other is revealed to it in the shape of something independent of it.”
― Hegel

“The shadow...
It's always with you.
It'll never leave your side
No matter sometimes it may become imperceptible.
But wherever you go, it'll abide.

Akin to the way your loved ones
are always beside you
No matter in which direction you go
No matter where the wind got you blew...”
― Mallika Chawla

“Against the advice of doctors, the governor refuses to allow an incurably ill man to be put out of his misery. This is the other face of capital punishment. One day we shall have to fight for the abolition of the life penalty, as we did in the past for the abolition of the death penalty.

Shadows have always preceded us, and they will outlive us. We were dead before we were alive, and we shall be again.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004

“You can learn a lot about someone's inner life if allowed to examine them the way their shadow does – close enough to breathe down their neck, but unnoticed, unremarked upon, invisible.”
― Jennifer Giesbrecht, The Monster of Elendhaven

“The leaves' autumn colors were muted in the shadows they settled among.”
― Jazz Feylynn

“A Way is needed which contains a concept of Absolute Existence that includes both the Light and the Dark, and Life and Death. If, for instance, Christianity might see Lucifer as the complement and not the enemy, it might take a valuable step on the road to becoming more holistic and respectful of the human reality. If the Divine cannot partake of the Shadow, it cannot be the Divine, for the Divine cannot truly nourish humanity if it only feeds one pole of the human being.”
― Laurence Galian, The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis

“V'è, in noi Orientali, un'inclinazione ad accettare i limiti, e le circostanze, della vita. Ci rassegniamo all'ombra così com'è, e senza repulsione. La luce è fievole? Lasciamo che le tenebre ci inghiottano, e scopriamo loro una beltà.”
― Tanizaki Jun’ichirô

“A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow as well as himself - and what is a man's shadow but his upright astonishment?”
― Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

“Has a shadow a name? / ¿Tiene nombre una sombra?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“For Carter, it was as if the ghosts of Watergate stalked the halls of the White House.”
― Bob Woodward, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate

“Later that afternoon, Poindexter drafted a statement incorporating the president's instructions. "As has been the case at a n umber of similar meetings with the president and his senior advisers, there was unanimous support for the president's decisions," Poindexter wrote.
He sent the text to Shultz's plane, which was taking the secretary of state on a long-planned trip to Central America. Shultz read the statement.
"That's a lie," Shultz told his executive assistant, Charles Hill. "It's Watergate all over again." As far as Shultz was concerned, Poindexter and Casey had set up their own foreign policy, one based on secret deals and operations. Congress and even Shultz's own money and was making policy. The CIA was supposed to be neutral, and it had become a rival in making foreign policy.
By cable, Shultz told Poindexter, "It says there was unanimous support for the president's decisions. That is not accurate. I can't accept that sentence. Drop the last word."
Poindexter grudgingly agreed to the change, omitting the word "decisions" so the statement that was released oddly said, "There was unanimous support for the president.”
― Bob Woodward, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate

“The great men walk on their shadow: They anticipate the future. (Les grands hommes marchent sur leur ombre : Ils anticipent l’ avenir)”
― Charles de Leusse

“A giant housefly had flown into the oval office and began buzzing loudly. Baker rolled up a memo and tried to swat it, missing numerous times.”
― Bob Woodward, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate

“You know how fragile the shadow is! A light falls on it and the shadow disappears! Some of the shadows that we fear and believe that they will always rule our lives also suddenly disappear!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“We are shadows trying to find the light by hiding from it.”
― Lidia Longorio, Hey Humanity

“Shaking my head, I grinned in my defiance, and the room and the whole world became soft and buzzing, lights dangerously unfocused. Our shadows intermingled, a Chagall on the pale wood floor. My thoughts sudden and intriguing, like a rainbow you see for only a second—”
― Aspen Matis, Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir

“Shelter in your shadow.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“The light doesn't cast a shadow unless an obstruction creeps in.”
― Mahendar Singh Jakhar