At Good Good Good, we find and share good news every day. But we work hard to make sure that in our effort to share the good, we never neglect to pay attention to the bad. Similarly, in our pursuit of the light, we don’t want to dismiss the dark.
We’ve collected the best quotes about darkness to point to the importance and power of darkness — and to help you appreciate the light more than ever.
And if you want more: Check out our curated quotes about light and our ultimate collection of quotes about finding light in the darkness.
Explore these quotes about darkness
Famous Quotes About Darkness
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
— Mary Oliver
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
— Carl Jung
“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
— Anne Frank
“I wonder if that’s how darkness wins, by convincing us to trap it inside ourselves, instead of emptying it out. I don’t want it to win.”
— Jasmine Warga
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
— Carl Jung
“When you look ahead and darkness is all you see, faith and determination will pull you through.”
— Drake
“Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness.”
— Julia Cameron
“You will fear the darkness only to the extent that you yourself are not providing light.”
— Marianne Williamson
“No situation is so dark that there is not a ray of light!”
— Norman Vincent Peale
“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
— St. Francis of Assisi
Dark Quotes About Life
“I think we all have light and dark inside us.”
— Sean Penn
“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”
— Helen Keller
“Hope begins in the dark.”
— Anne Lamott
“Live with grace and dignity. It’s a middle finger to the darkness.”
— Jamie Tworkowski, If You Feel Too Much: Thoughts on Things Found and Lost and Hoped For
“By running from what we fear, we feed the inner darkness!”
— Tara Brach
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
— Carl Jung
“Faith is a bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
— Rabindranath Tagore
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
— Mark Twain
“Why not dare yourself to become a shining positive light where darkness is the only thing known?”
— Edmond Mbiaka
“To all who walk the dark path, and to those who walk in the sunshine but hold out a hand in the darkness to travel beside us: Brighter days are coming. Clearer sight will arrive. And you will arrive too. No, it might not be forever. The bright moments might be for a few days at a time, but hold on for those days. Those days are worth the dark.”
— Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
→ Read more quotes about life
Inspirational Quotes About Shadows
“The shadow is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light.”
— Ram Dass
“Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. It is a matter of choice.”
— Maya Angelou
“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows.”
— George R. R. Martin
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you.”
— Walt Whitman
“I think that light and shadow have exactly the same duality that exists between life and death.”
— Manuel Alvarez Bravo
“Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.”
— Ruth E. Renkel
On Darkness & Light
“The darkness declares the glory of light.”
— T. S. Eliot
“To see a candle’s light one must take it into a dark place.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin
“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”
— Walt Whitman
“In the midst of darkness, light persists.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
— Stanley Kubrick
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
— Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“Whenever you see darkness, there is extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter.”
— Bono
More Deep Dark Quotes, Sayings, and Captions
“The presence of fear and darkness does not mean that the hopeful parts of me cease to exist.”
— Erin Frye, in a blog post for TWLOHA
“Darkness exists to make light truly count.”
— Ryan O’Neal, Sleeping At Last
“Hello darkness, my old friend! I’ve come to talk with you again!”
— Simon & Garfunkel, Sound Of Silence
“The darkest night brings the brightest stars.”
— James B. Comey
“These woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep”
— Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
“Fear grows in darkness; if you think there’s a bogeyman around, turn on the light.”
— Dorothy Thompson
