Dark as pitch. [ Bunyan ]
Destiny is always dark. [ George Herbert ]
Dark with excessive bright. [ Milton ]
Life is too short to waste.
It will soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark! [ Emerson ]
To that dark inn, the Grave! [ Scott ]
At one stride comes the dark. [ Coleridge ]
All cats are grey in the dark. [ Proverb ]
A man's destiny is always dark. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A gray eye is a sly eye,
And roguish is a brown eye,-
Turn full upon me thy eye,-
Ah, how its wavelets drown one!
A blue eye is a true eye;
Mysterious is a dark one,
Which flashes like a spark-sun!
A black eye is the best one. [ W. R. Alger ]
Days of absence, sad and dreary;
Clothed in sorrow's dark array,
Days of absence, I am weary;
She I love is far away. [ Rousseau ]
Every one is dark fate's thrall. [ Schillerbuch ]
A tiny spark shines in the dark. [ French Proverb ]
Dark eyes - eternal soul of pride!
Deep life in all that's true!
Away, away to other skies!
Away over seas and sands!
Such eyes as those were never made
To shine in other lands. [ Leland ]
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress. [ Byron ]
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary. [ Longfellow ]
No day so clear but hath dark clouds. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Dark lattice! letting in eternal day. [ Young ]
What should we speak of
When we are old as you?
When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December. [ William Shakespeare ]
I am just going to leap into the dark. [ Rabelais ]
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. [ Byron, She Walks in Beauty ]
Thou bringest the sailor to his wife.
And travell'd men from foreign lands,
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life. [ Tennyson ]
Nature has made man's breast no windows
To publish what he does within doors,
Nor what dark secrets there inhabit,
Unless his own rash folly blab it. [ Butler ]
Dark error's other hidden side is truth. [ Victor Hugo ]
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear. [ Gray ]
Here eglantine embalm'd the air,
Hawthorne and hazel mingled there;
The primrose pale, and violet flower.
Found in each cliff a narrow bower;
Fox-glove and nightshade, side by side.
Emblems of punishment and pride,
Group'd their dark hues with every stain
The weather-beaten crags retain. [ Sir Walter Scott ]
O radiant Dark! O darkly fostered ray!
Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day. [ George Eliot ]
And, lo! in the dark east, expanded high.
The rainbow brightens to the setting Sun. [ Beattie ]
The rising world of waters dark and deep. [ Milton ]
He that runs in the dark may well stumble. [ Proverb ]
Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark. [ William Cowper ]
It is ill to drive black hogs in the dark. [ Proverb ]
When to soft Sleep we give ourselves away,
And in a dream as in a fairy bark
Drift on and on through the enchanted dark
To purple daybreak - little thought we pay
To that sweet bitter world we know by day. [ T. B. Aldrich ]
A good sailor may mistake in a dark night. [ Proverb ]
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,
Without all hope of day. [ Milton ]
The dream
Dreamed by a happy man, when the dark east,
Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. [ Tennyson ]
The lovely town was white with apple blooms.
And the great elms o'erhead
Dark shadows wove on their serial looms.
Shot through with golden thread. [ Longfellow ]
O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
Vast, sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
Blind, muffled bawd! dark harbor for defame!
Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator,
With close-tongued treason and the ravisher! [ William Shakespeare ]
We call friendship the love of the dark ages. [ Princess de Salm-Dyck ]
Dark the Night, with breath all flowers.
And tender broken voice that fills
With ravishment the listening hours, -
Whisperings, wooings.
Liquid ripples, and soft ring-dove cooings
In low-toned rhythm that love's aching stills!
Dark the night
Yet is she bright.
For in her dark she brings the mystic star.
Trembling yet strong, as is the voice of love.
From some unknown afar. [ George Eliot ]
The soul shut up in her dark room,
Viewing so clear abroad, at home sees nothing;
But, like a mole in earth, busy and blind,
Works all her folly up, and casts it outward
To the world's open view. [ John Dryden ]
But should you lure
From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,
Behooves you then to ply your finest art. [ Thomson ]
And genius hath electric power,
Which earth can never tame;
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower -
Its flash is still the same. [ Lydia M. Child ]
Honest men fear neither the light nor the dark. [ Proverb ]
The heart's hushed secret in the soft dark eye. [ L. E. Landon ]
My people too were scared with eerie sounds,
A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls,
A noise of falling weights that never fell.
Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand.
Door-handles turn'd when none was at the door.
And bolted doors that open'd of themselves;
And one betwixt the dark and light had seen
Her, bending by the cradle of her babe. [ Tennyson ]
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, - roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin - his control
Stops with the shore. [ Byron ]
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
Be the skies above or dark or fair,
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear -
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear -
There is ever a song somewhere. [ James Whitcomb Riley ]
Thus was beauty sent from heaven,
The lovely ministress of truth and good,
In this dark world; for truth and good are one,
And beauty dwells in them and they in her
With like participation. [ Akenside ]
Long while I sought to what I might compare
Those powerful eyes, which light my dark spirit;
Yet found I nought on earth, to which I dare
Resemble the image of their goodly light.
Not to the sun, for they do shine by night;
Nor to the moon, for they are changed never;
Nor to the stars, for they have purer sight;
Nor to the fire, for they consume not ever;
Nor to the lightning, for they still persevere;
Nor to the diamond, for they are more tender;
Nor unto crystal, for nought may they sever;
Nor unto glass, such baseness might offend her;
Then to the Maker's self the likest be;
Whose light doth lighten all that here we see. [ Spenser ]
I would not live alway; I ask not to stay
Where storm after storm rises dark over the way. [ William A. Muhlenberg ]
How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air.
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain
Breaks the serene heaven:
In full-orb'd glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night! [ Southey ]
Through life's dark road his sordid way he wends,
An incarnation of fat dividends. [ Sprague ]
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark. [ Bacon ]
O very gloomy is the House of Woe,
Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling.
With all the dark solemnities which show
That Death is in the dwelling!
O, very, very dreary is the room
Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles.
But smitten by the common stroke of doom.
The corpse lies on the trestles! [ Hood ]
He that gropes in the dark finds what he would not. [ Proverb ]
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. [ Waller ]
Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven
Contracted in two circles underneath
Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless,
Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven. [ Shelley ]
Her eye (I am very fond of handsome eyes).
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flashed an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise,
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul,
Which struggled through and chastened down the whole. [ Byron ]
Men fear death, as children fear going into the dark. [ Proverb ]
A word from a friend is doubly enjoyable in dark days. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
No wonder if he break his shins that walks in the dark. [ Proverb ]
Many a lash in the dark doth conscience give the wicked. [ Boston ]
Look at the bright side of a failure as well as the dark. [ Anon ]
The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough. [ Carlyle ]
In man's most dark extremity 0"ft succor dawns from Heaven. [ Scott ]
We like to give in the sunlight, and to receive in the dark. [ J. Petit-Senn ]
Afflictions are but as a dark entry into our Father's house. [ Thomas Brooks ]
No night is so dark that our Father's smile cannot cheer it. [ Mrs. S. H. De Kroyft ]
The swallowing gulf of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion. [ William Shakespeare ]
What in me is dark, Illumine, what is low, raise and support. [ Milton ]
Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the dark. [ Newton ]
He that gives to be seen would never relieve a man in the dark. [ Proverb ]
The leaves of memory seem to make a mournful rustle in the dark. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
When dark December glooms the day, and takes our autumn joys away. [ Sir Walter Scott ]
Even the rude breast has moments in which dark powers awaken melodies. [ Körner ]
His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire, showed spirit proud, and prompt to ire. [ Sir Walter Scott ]
The day is dark and cold and dreary; it rains, and the wind is never weary. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
The thundering voice that wrings, in one dark, damning moment, crimes of years! [ Percival ]
Who now travels that dark path to the bourne from which they say no one returns. [ Catullus ]
All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil. [ Beaconsfield ]
And now the thickened sky like a dark ceiling stood; down rushed the rain impetuous. [ Milton ]
Love is merely a madness, and .... deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do. [ William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2 ]
The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops were close against the sky. [ Hood ]
The genius of life is friendly to the noble, and, in the dark, brings them friends from far. [ Emerson ]
Thus was beauty sent from heaven, the lovely ministress of truth and good in this dark world. [ Akenside ]
The light of friendship is like the light of phosphorus - seen plainest when all around is dark. [ Crowell ]
Thy eye can make the world dark or bright for thee; as thou look'st on it, it will weep or laugh. [ Rückert ]
The dark grave, which knows all secrets, can alone reclaim the fatal doubt once cast on a woman's name. [ George Herbert ]
The soul of man is larger than the sky. Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark Of the unfathomed centre. [ Hartley Coleridge ]
In the dark a glimmering light is often sufficient for the pilot to find the polar star and to fix his course. [ Metastasio, Achille ]
Woe for my vine-clad home, that it should ever be so dark to me, with its bright threshold and its whispering tree! [ N. P. Willis ]
All day the rain bathed the dark hyacinths in vain; the flood may pour from morn till night, nor wash the pretty Indian white. [ Hafiz ]
It seems as though, at the approach of a certain dark hour, the light of heaven infills those who are leaving the light of earth. [ Victor Hugo ]
In the destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power and his dark path becomes a way of light to heaven. [ Dickens ]
There are pictures by Titian so steeped in golden splendors, that they look as if they would light up a dark room like a solar lamp. [ Hillard ]
Human action is a seed of circumstances scattered in the dark land of the future and hopefully left to the powers that rule human destiny. [ Friedrich Schiller ]
If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how much glow-in-the-dark stuff we have, and how we take so much of it for granted. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
Had he not long read the heart's hushed secret in the soft, dark eye, lighted at his approach, and on the cheek, coloring all crimson at his lightest look? [ L. E. Landon ]
Polished steel will not shine in the dark; no more can reason, however refined, shine efficaciously, but as it reflects the light of Divine truth, shed from heaven. [ Foster ]
Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and good and dwell as little as possible on the dark and the base. [ Cecil ]
O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea. Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam. Survey our empire, and behold our home! [ Byron ]
The great blessings of mankind are within us, and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and, like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it. [ Seneca ]
Death to a good man is but passing through a dark entry, out of one little dusky room of his Father's house into another that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely entertaining. [ Adam Clarke ]
There are no unions that have not their dark days; but, when we have loved each other, we remember it always, and those sweet remembrances, that the heart accumulates, survive love like twilight.
No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but certainly not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following openly-declared purposes, and preaching candidly-beloved and trusted creeds. [ John Ruskin ]
Glow-worms are the image of women: when they are in the dark, one is struck with their brilliancy; as soon as they appear in the broad light of the world, one sees them in their true colors, with all their defects. [ Mme. Necker ]
Great men are the fire-pillars in this dark pilgrimage of mankind; they stand as heavenly signs, ever-living witnesses of what has been, prophetic tokens of what may still be, the revealed, embodied possibilities of human nature. [ Carlyle ]
How many a knot of mystery and misunderstanding would be untied by one word spoken in simple and confiding truth of heart! How many a solitary place would be made glad if love were there, and how many a dark dwelling would be filled with light! [ Dewey ]
Sombre thoughts and fancies often require a little real soil or substance to flourish in; they are the dark pinetrees which take root in, and frown over the rifts of the scathed and petrified heart, and are chiefly nourished by the rain of unavailing tears, and the vapors of fancy. [ J. F. Boyes ]
Some are so close and reserved that they will not show their wares but by a dark light, and seem always to keep back somewhat; and when they know within themselves they speak of that which they do not well know, would nevertheless seem to others to know of that which they may not well speak. [ Bacon ]
Evil, what we call evil, must ever exist while man exists; evil, in the widest sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, disordered material out of which man's freewill has to create an edifice of order and good. Ever must pain urge us to labour; and only in free effort can any blessedness be imagined for us. [ Carlyle ]
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 ]
The morbid states of health, the irritableness of disposition arising from unstrung nerves, the impatience, the crossness, the fault-finding of men, who, full of morbid influences, are unhappy themselves, and throw the cloud of their troubles like a dark shadow upon others, teach us what eminent duty there is in health. [ Beecher ]
Mirthfulness is in the mind, and you cannot get it out. It is the blessed spirit that God has set in the mind to dust it, to enliven its dark places, and to drive asceticism, like a foul fiend, out at the back door. It is just as good, in its place, as conscience or veneration. Praying can no more be made a substitute for smiling than smiling can for praying. [ Beecher ]
Poetical taste is the only magician whose wand is not broken. No hand, except its own, can dissolve the fabric of beauty in which it dwells. Genii, unknown to Arabian fable, wait at the portal. Whatever is most precious from the loom or the mine of fancy is poured at its feet. Love, purified by contemplation, visits and cheers it; unseen musicians are heard in the dark; it is Psyche in the palace of Cupid. [ Willmott ]
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 ]