Good is that darkening of our lives.
Which only God can brighten;
But better still that hopeless load.
Which none but God can lighten. [ Frederick William Faber ]

Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul.
Activity will cleanse and brighten it. [ Johnson ]

How blessings brighten as they take their flight! [ Young ]

Oft the cloud that wraps the present hour serves but to brighten all our future days. [ Wm. Browne ]

Of all the joys that brighten suffering earth, what joy is welcomed like a new-born child? [ Mrs. Norton ]

The friendship I have conceived will not be impaired by absence; but it may be no unpleasing circumstance to brighten the chain by a renewal of the covenant. [ George Washington ]

We may be sure that cheerful beliefs about the unseen world, framed in full harmony with the beauty of the visible universe, and with the sweetness of domestic affections and joys, and held in company with kindred and friends, will illuminate the dark places on the pathway of earthly life and brighten all the road. [ Charles W. Eliot ]

If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal souls, if we imbue them with principles, with the just fear of God and love of fellow men, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten all eternity. [ Daniel Webster ]

Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation. [ Goldsmith ]