33 Darkness Quotes

In the realm of literature and philosophy, darkness has often been a profound theme, symbolizing mystery, fear, but also resilience and introspection. Darkness can evoke a myriad of emotions and provoke deep contemplation. Whether it’s the shadows that haunt us or the calm of a starless night, the concept of darkness transcends mere absence of light, delving into the richness of human experience. In this post, we explore a curated collection of the top 33 darkness quotes, each offering a unique perspective and shedding light on the many dimensions of darkness. Journey with us through these evocative words, and perhaps, find some illumination in the dark.

1. “In the dark I rest,unready for the light which dawnsday after day,eager to be shared.Black silk, shelter me.I needmore of the night before I openeyes and heartto illumination. I must stillgrow in the dark like a rootnot ready, not ready at all.” - Denise Levertov

2. “We enjoy the night, the darkness, where we can do things that aren't acceptable in the light. Night is when we slake our thirst.” - William Hill

3. “POZZO:I am blind.(Silence.)ESTRAGON:Perhaps he can see into the future.” - Samuel Beckett

4. “I had two dreams about him after he died. I dont remember the first one all that well but it was about meetin him in town somewheres and he give me some money and I think I lost it. But the second one it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothin. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.” - Cormac McCarthy

5. “Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It’s only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes—if necessary—brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must.” - Clive Barker

6. “It is not that I was credulous, simply that I belived in all things dark and dangerous. It was part of my young creed that the night was full of ghosts and witches, hungry and flapping and dressed completely in black.” - Neil Gaiman

7. “Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.” - Murasaki Shikibu

8. “How terrible this darkness was, how bewildering, and yet mysteriously beautiful!” - Stefan Zweig

9. “Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.” - kate dicamillo

10. “Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."[Q&A with Larry McCaffery, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2]” - David Foster Wallace

11. “But they can't know how the dark space inside me is growing. I lie to them. I can't get out of the dark hole. 'Peace is here' it whispers.” - Lurlene McDaniel

12. “If darkness surrounds you, look for the light. If you can't see it, raise your head up. You may be surrounded by darkness but it does not cover you on top. Let the light shine down on you and let it lead the way out of darkness.” - Ann Marie Aguilar

13. “I write about adversity, I praise adversity, not to be pessimistic, but rather to strengthen myself. The more familiar that you are with it, the less likely you are to have a breakdown when it occurs. You become more reflective of its purpose, you understand God's reason for it, and are then able to make the best of everything that you are handed. The darkness is only frightening after constant sunshine.” - Criss Jami

14. “From the vast, invisible ocean of moonlight overhead fell, here and here, a slender, broken stream that seemed to plash against the intercepting branches and trickle to earth, forming small white pools among the clumps of laurel. But these leaks were few and served only to accentuate the blackness of his environment, which his imagination found it easy to people with all manner of unfamiliar shapes, menacing, uncanny, or merely grotesque.He to whom the portentous conspiracy of night and solitude and silence in the heart of a great forest is not an unknown experience needs not to be told what another world it all is - how even the most commonplace and familiar objects take on another character. The trees group themselves differently; they draw closer together, as if in fear. The very silence has another quality than the silence of the day. And it is full of half-heard whispers, whispers that startle - ghosts of sounds long dead. There are living sounds, too, such as are never heard under other conditions: notes of strange night birds, the cries of small animals in sudden encounters with stealthy foes, or in their dreams, a rustling in the dead leaves - it may be the leap of a wood rat, it may be the footstep of a panther. What caused the breaking of that twig? What the low, alarmed twittering in that bushful of birds? There are sounds without a name, forms without substance, translations in space of objects which have not been seen to move, movements wherein nothing is observed to change its place. Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the world in which you live! ("A Tough Tussle")” - Ambrose Bierce

15. “A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,Which finds no natural outlet or relief,In word, or sigh, or tear.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

16. “There were a billion lights out there on the horizon and I knew that all of them put together weren't enough to light the darkness in the hearts of some men.” - Michael Connelly

17. “How can you fall in love at first sight when you can't even see?” - Melinda Cross

18. “We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.” - Neal Shusterman

19. “I trust only you and the dark always to look at me so honestly.” - Meredith Duran

20. “People often believed they were safer in the light, thinking monsters only came out at night. But safety – like light – is a façade.” - CJ Roberts

21. “Too much of anything could destroy you, Simon thought. Too much darkness could kill, but too much light could blind.” - Cassandra Clare

22. “How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.” - C.G. Jung

23. “If we are a people who pray, darkness is apt to be a lot of what our prayers are about. If we are people who do not pray, it is apt to be darkness in one form or another that has stopped our mouths.” - Frederick Buechner

24. “Darkness is a defining characteristic of Rotters. But it’s worthy to remember that darkness is just that—it’s dark—and what is being concealed in the dark is not just the horrible and fearsome, it’s also the inspirational and moving. Horror means nothing without happiness; dark means nothing without light. Rotters may make you feel scared, but hopefully it will also make you simply feel. It’s that kind of book, or at least I hope it is.” - Daniel Kraus

25. “...then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.” - Herman Melville

26. “Use the wings of the flying Universe, Dream with open eyes; See in darkness.” - Dejan Stojanovic

27. “When you're scared - and I mean really scared, not just hearing a noise in the night, or standing toe to toe with someone twice your size who wants to pound you into the earth - it feels as if you're being injected with darkness. It's like black water as cold as ice settling in your body where your blood and marrow used to be, pushing every other feeling out as it fills you from your feet to your scalp. It leaves you with nothing.” - Alexander Gordon Smith

28. “...goodness is not the absence of evil - it's the light that pushes back the darkness...” - John Geddes

29. “... only darkened trails of rain could paint your face upon a pane...” - John Geddes

30. “Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved” - Iris Murdoch

31. “Numb the dark and you numb the light.” - Brené Brown

32. “Why people wanted to dance whenever it got dark was beyond him. Somehow, the two seemed to go together, like bees and flowers, or flies and dung. Darkness and dancing.” - Terry Goodkind

33. “Was that what it was really like to be alive? The feeling of darkness dragging you forward?How could they live with it? And yet they did, and even seemed to find enjoyment in it, when surely the only sensible course would be to despair. Amazing. To feel you were a tiny living thing, sandwiched between two cliffs of darkness. How could they stand to be alive?” - Terry Pratchett