55 Inspiring Shadow-Themed Quotes

In the realm of metaphors and symbolism, shadows often represent more than mere silhouettes cast by light. They evoke emotions, reflect inner depths, and reveal truths hidden beneath the surface. Whether viewed as protective veils or enigmatic companions, shadows intrigue and inspire. Here, we bring you a thoughtfully selected collection of 55 shadow-themed quotes, each capturing the essence of what shadows mean to us. Dive in to explore how poets, philosophers, and thinkers have reflected upon the interplay of light and dark, uncovering a rich tapestry of wisdom and inspiration along the way.

1. “The shadow escapes from the body like an animal we had been sheltering.” - Gilles Deleuze

2. “To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing -- the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.” - Marilynne Robinson

3. “Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow. Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others. Instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations. The same way old painters would sit in a tiny dark room and trace the image of what stood outside a tiny window, in the bright sunlight. The camera obscura. Not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down.” - Chuck Palahniuk

4. “Yet a mysterious gate lay open within her shadow; and all my flesh was aware of black pathways and hovels and the silence one observes when the dead are near.” - Joe Bousquet

5. “... there are shadows because there are hills.” - E.M. Forster

6. “Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.” - W.H. Auden

7. “I have always been afraid... Always been pretending to follow you closely, alwyas been pretending to sharpen my teeth, when the truth is, I am ... scared to death just treading on your shadow.” - Tite Kubo

8. “Though no one notices at the time, in-loveness obliterates the humanity of the beloved. One does a curious kind of insult to another by falling in love with him, for we are really looking at our own projection of God, not at the other person. If two people are in love, they tread on star dust for a time and live happily ever after—that is so long as this experience of divinity has obliterated time for them. Only when they come down to earth do they have to look at each other realistically and only then does the possibility of mature love exist. If one person is in love and the other not, the cooler one is likely to say, "We would have something better between us if you would look at me rather than at your image of me.” - Robert A Johnson

9. “Mom," said Peter, "nobody thinks you're a lackwit, if that's what you're worried about."Lackwit? In what musty drawer of some dead English professor's dust-covered desk did you find that word? I assure you that never in my worst nightmares did I ever suppose that I was a lackwit.” - Orson Scott Card

10. “Stop in somebody's shadow to rest and cool down, and you are lost. No one can make anyone else happy.” - Peter Deunov

11. “This explosive psychological 'sneaking' occurs when a woman suppresses large parts of self into the shadows of the psyche. In the view of analytical psychology, the repression of both negative and positive instincts, urges, and feelings into the unconscious causes them to inhabit a shadow realm. While the ego and superego attempt to continue to censor the shadow impulses, the very pressure that repression causes is rather like a bubble in the sidewall of a tire. Eventually, as the tire revolves and heats up, the pressure behind the bubble intensifies, causing it to explode outward, releasing all the inner content. The shadow acts similarlyY We find that by opening the door to the shadow realm a little, and letting out various elements a few at a time, relating to them, finding use for them, negotiating, we can reduce being surprised by shadow sneak attacks and unexpected explosions.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

12. “A song she heardOf cold that gathersLike winter's tongueAmong the shadowsIt rose like blacknessIn the skyThat on volcano'sVomit riseA Stone of ruinFrom burn to chillLike black moonriseHer voice fell still...” - Robert Fanney

13. “She's in the Catskill," Shopie began, but Scathach reached over and pinched her hand. "Ouch!"I just wanted to distract you," Scathach explained. "Don't even think about Black Annis. There are some names that should never be spoken aloud."That like saying don't think of elephants, Josh said, "and then all you can think about is elephants."Then let me give you something else to think about," Scathach said softly. "There are two police officers in the window staring at us. Don't look," she added urgently.Too late. Josh turned to look and whatever crossed his face--shock, horror, guilt or fear--bought both officers racing into the cafe, one pulling his automatic from its holster, the other speaking urgently into his radio as he drew his baton.” - Michael Scott

14. “What chance combination of shadow and sound and his own thoughts had created it?” - Patricia Highsmith

15. “Dialogo tra Levi Matteo e Satana (il mago Woland)."Se vieni da me, perché non mi hai salutato, ex pubblicano?", replico Woland severo."Perché non voglio che tu stia in salute", rispose brusco il nuovo venuto."Ma dovrai rassegnarti a questo", replicò Woland e un sorriso increspò la sua bocca, "sei appena apparso sul tetto e già hai fatto una sciocchezza e ti dirò quale: è il tuo tono. Hai pronunciato le parole come se non riconoscessi le tenebre e il male. Sii tanto cortese da riflettere su questa domanda: che cosa sarebbe il tuo bene se non ci fosse il male, e come apparirebbe la terra se non ci fossero le ombre? Le ombre nascono dagli oggetti e dalle persone. Ecco l'ombra della mia spada. Ma ci sono le ombre degli alberi e degli esseri viventi. Non vorrai per caso sbucciare tutto il globo terrestre buttando via tutti gli alberi e tutto ciò che è vivo per godere della tua fantasia della nuda luce? Sei uno sciocco."(Il maestro e Margherita)” - Bulgakov Mikhail

16. “What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?” - Mikhail Bulgakov

17. “Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…” - Louisa May Alcott

18. “The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow.” - George R.R. Martin

19. “So don't be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don't know what work they are accomplishing within you?” - Rainer Maria Rilke

20. “Tak ada satu hal pun tanpa bayang-bayang, kecuali terang itu sendiri.” - Pramoedya Ananta Toer

21. “There is strong shadow where there is much light.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

22. “So," he asked. "How's death?""Hard," she said. "It just keeps going.” - Neil Gaiman

23. “You let their friendship continue because Maisie looks after your son while you're gallivanting around the country disguised as Sherlock Holmes" - Uncle Paton Yewbeam” - Jenny Nimmo

24. “People who avoid shadow scare me.” - Fierce Dolan

25. “La spada sibilò nell’aria cozzando contro l’altra lama. Gli occhi verde cupo di Alex incontrarono quelli scuri del suo avversario, i loro volti vicini – l’uno glabro, l’altro cerchiato da abbondanti baffi scuri –, il respiro sul viso dell’altro. Poi con uno scatto Alex si allontanò, roteò su se stessa e la lama del suo pugnale fu alla gola dell’avversario, mentre la spada bloccava quella di lui. Urla cominciarono ad alzarsi dagli spalti, riempiendo l’aria calda e rendendola ancora più soffocante. Alex non si mosse, mentre le grida la incitavano a ucciderlo. Tenne gli occhi fissi su quelli dell’uomo che aveva di fronte. I muscoli tesi sotto gli abiti attillati scuri, le braccia lucide alla luce bianca dei neon. Premette la lama del pugnale sino a far sgorgare un sottile filo purpureo di sangue dalla pelle olivastra della gola di lui. I suoi occhi la guardarono furenti.” - Laura Randazzo

26. “To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water.” - Barbara Hurd

27. “Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light.” - Steven Erikson

28. “What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.” - Oscar Wilde

29. “Our own place is mall perhaps, but when your old man is eaten by his own shadow, you realise that maybe in every house, something so savage and sad and brilliant is standing up, without the world even seeing it.Maybe that's what these pages of words are about:Bringing the world to the window.” - Markus Zusak

30. “Oh, Kendra, before I forget, Gavin asked me to give you this letter." He held out a gray, speckled envelope."Happy birthday to you!" Seth exclaimed, his voice full of implications.Kendra tried not to blush as she tucked the envelope away."Dear Kendra," Seth improvised, "you're the only girl who really gets me, you know, and I think you're very mature for your age--""What about some cake?" Grandma interrupted, holding the first piece out to Kendra and glaring at Seth.” - Brandon Mull

31. “It's patterns," he said. "If they think you're a hero, they're wrong. After you die, you don't get to be Beowulf or Perseus or Rama anymore. Whole different set of rules. Chess, not checkers. Go, not chess. You understand?” - Neil Gaiman

32. “Everything that is,casts a shadow” - Neil Gaiman

33. “Technically, the weight of pain is the weight of shadow.” - Carl Phillips

34. “A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.” - Victor Hugo

35. “it was like trying to see a shadow in the dark.” - Melissa Andrea

36. “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

37. “the abyss you stare into and that stares back at you is your reflection in the mirror - we all have it - that shadow self - that dark heart...” - John Geddes

38. “One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.” - Jean Rhys

39. “I love to chase my shadow to feel how it rests in the dark.” - Munia Khan

40. “There was nothing the matter out there. It was in here, with me. I decided I'd better go to work, maybe that would exorcise me. I fled from the room almost as though it were haunted. It was too late to stop off at a breakfast counter now. I didn't want any, anyway. My stomach kept giving little quivers. In the end I didn't go to work, either. I couldn't, I wouldn't have been any good. I telephoned in that I was too ill to come, and it was no idle excuse, even though I was upright on my two legs.I roamed around the rest of the day in the sunshine. Wherever the sunshine was the brightest, I sought and stayed in that place, and when it moved on I moved with it. I couldn't get it bright enough or strong enough. I avoided the shade, I edged away from it, even the slight shade of an awning or of a tree.And yet the sunshine didn't warm me. Where others mopped their brows and moved out of it, I stayed - and remained cold inside. And the shade was winning the battle as the hours lengthened. It outlasted the sun. The sun weakened and died; the shade deepened and spread. Night was coming on, the time of dreams, the enemy. ("Nightmare")” - Cornell Woolrich

41. “Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien” - J.R.R. Tolkien

42. “Sometime the witch hunting takes on atrocious dimensions — the Nazi persecution of Jews, the Salem witch trials, the Ku Klux Klan scapegoating of blacks. Notice, however, that in all such cases the persecutor hates the persecuted for precisely those traits that the persecutor displays with a glaringly uncivilized fury. At other times, the witch hunt appears in less terrifying proportions—the cold war fear of a "Commie under every bed," for instance. And often, it appears in comic form—the interminable gossip about everybody else that tells you much more about the gossiper than about the object of gossip. But all of these are instances of individuals desperate to prove that their own shadows belong to other people.Many men and women will launch into tirades about how disgusting homosexuals are. Despite how decent and rational they otherwise try to behave, they find themselves seized with a loathing of any homosexual, and in an emotional outrage will advocate such things as suspending gay civil rights (or worse). But why does such an individual hate homosexuals so passionately? Oddly, he doesn’t hate the homosexual because he is homosexual; he hates him because he sees in the homosexual what he secretly fears he himself might become. He is most uncomfortable with his own natural, unavoidable, but minor homosexual tendencies, and so projects them. He thus comes to hate the homosexual inclinations in other people—but only because he first hates them in himself. And so, in one form or another, the witch hunt goes. We hate people "because," we say, they are dirty, stupid, perverted, immoral.... They might be exactly what we say they are. Or they might not. That is totally irrelevent, however, because we hate them only if we ourselves unknowingly possess the despised traits ascribed to them. We hate them because they are a constant reminder of aspects of ourselves that we are loathe to admit. We are starting to see an important indicator of projection. Those items in the environment (people or things) that strongly affect us instead of just informing us are usually our own projections. Items that bother us, upset us, repulse us, or at the other extreme, attract us, compel us, obsess us—these are usually reflections of the shadow. As an old proverb has it, I looked, and looked, and this I came to see: That what I thought was you and you, Was really me and me.” - Ken Wilber

43. “For Carter, it was as if the ghosts of Watergate stalked the halls of the White House. As with most ghosts, he wasn't sure they existed, where they were or how to exorcise them.” - Bob Woodward

44. “In the forestlichen writhes and assembles itself into signs to light my path through the deep dark north shadow; and I emerge at last onto a hillside strewn with logogrammatic stones, and scramble away from spruce tops." in the poem "Beyond the Beacon" from Terra Affirmative.” - jay woodman

45. “I see my skeleton walking down the street now. I’m walking behind it. Our feet touch the ground at the same time. I am my own shadow. The road we’re walking along looks familiar. The trees lining the pavement have been bleached by the sun. There are stone steps on my left. I climb them. This is the route I used to take after school. It’s very dark. The skeleton has disappeared.” - Ma Jian

46. “Questa luce, cioè la storia, è spietata; essa ha questo di strano e di divino, e cioè che quantunque sia luce, e precisamente perché è luce, mette spesso dell'ombra là dove si vedono raggi; dello stesso uomo fa due fantasmi differenti, e l'uno attacca l'altro, e ne fa giustizia, e le tenebre del despota lottano con lo splendore del capitano. Da qui, una misura più vera nell'apprezzamento definitivo dei popoli. Babilonia violata diminuisce Alessandro; Roma incatenata diminuisce Cesare; Gerusalemme uccisa diminuisce Tito. La tirannia segue il tiranno. E' una sventura per un uomo lasciare dietro di sé dell'ombra che ha la forma sua.” - Victor Hugo

47. “I am you, Umasi, and I am weak." the shadow spun around and began walking away. "In the end, either you will conquer me…or I will conquer you.” - Isamu Fukui

48. “In the dark, where do shadows go?” - Orson Scott Card

49. “There are no shadows in darkness. Shadows are created by light, and only exist in the presence of light. Refusing to acknowledge our shadow leads us to deny the presence of light in us.” - Franco Santoro

50. “When you understand who God is, you can see beyond a shadow of a doubt why your weakness is nothing to be feared, because it just leaves more room for him and his strength.” - Hayley and Michael DiMarco

51. “MINISTER: All he has done is to find some means of bewitching the intelligence. He has only induced a radical suspension of disbelief. As in the early days of the cinema, all the citizens are jumping through the screen to lay their hands on the naked lady in the bathtub!AMBASSADOR: And yet, in fact, their fingers touch flesh.MINISTER: They believe they do. Yet all they touch is substantial shadow.AMBASSADOR: And what a beautiful definition of flesh! You know I am only substantial shadow, Minister, but if you cut me, I bleed. Touch me, I palpitate!” - Angela Carter

52. “Sometimes you grow to love the shadow that follows.” - Donna Lynn Hope

53. “Midnight"The hours glide Like drops of water on a window pane Midnight silence Fear unrolls in the air And the wind hides at the bottom of the well OH It's a leaf We think the earth is going to end Time stirs in the shadow Everyone is asleep A SIGH Inside the house someone has just died” - Vicente Huidobro

54. “Desire, desire which knows, we draw no advantage from our shadows except from some veritable sovereignties accompanied by invisible flames, invisible chains, which, coming to light, step after step, cause us to shine.” - Rene Char

55. “New struggles. -- After Buddha was dead, they still showed his shadow in a cave for centuries -- a colossal, horrible shadow. God is dead, but given the way people are, there may still be caves for millennia in which his shadow is displayed. -- And we -- we must still defeat his shadow as well!” - Friedrich Nietzsche