#Contrast Quotes

“Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.”

“The latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast, Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest.”

“Lawn as white as driven snow; Cyprus black as e'er was crow; Gloves as sweet as damask roses.”

“For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night.”

“Winter, which, being full of care, makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.”

“Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;And now, instead of mounting barbed steedsTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,He capers nimbly in a lady's chamberTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.”

“At one side of the palette there is white, at the other black; and neither is ever used neat.”

“The apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.”

“Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects treachery?”

“So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.”

“We sit in calm, airy, silent rooms opening upon sunlit and embowered lawns, not a sound except of summer and of husbandry disturbs the peace; but seven million men, any ten thousand of whom could have annihilated the ancient armies, are in ceaseless battle from the Alps to the Ocean.”

“Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land;Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.”

“Crabbed age and youth cannot live together; Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care; Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather; Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare. Youth is full sport, age's breath is short; Youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, age is tame. Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee.”

“The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves The brilliant moon and all the milky sky And all that famous harmony of leaves Had blotted out man's image and his cry.”

“A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.”

“There's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December.”

“All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the plowman, splashing the wintry mold, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.”

“Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?”

“The repose of darkness is deeper on the water than on the land.”

“The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.”

“A few feet under the ground reigns so profound a silence, and yet so much tumult on the surface!”

“You would have imagined her at one moment a maniac, at another a queen.”

“Logic ignores the almost, just as the sun ignores the candle.”

“Nobody loves the light like the blind man.”

“Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art. In a woman the flesh must be like marble; in a statue the marble must be like flesh.”

“strength is overcome by weakness/Joy is overcome by Pain/The night is overcome by Brightness/and Love-it remains the same.”

“You never know a line is crooked unless you have a straight one to put next to it.”

“Happiness ain't a thing in itself - it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.”

“If hers are the stars in the nighttime sky, mine are the haunted empty spaces in between.”

“The name of peace is sweet and the thing itself good, but between peace and slavery there is the greatest difference.”

“Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other. High and low rest upon each other. Voice and sound harmonize each other. Front and back follow one another.”

“The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.”

“It is because every one tinder Heaven recognizes beauty as beauty that the idea of ugliness exists.”

“Any color is more distinctly seen when opposed to its contrary: thus, black on white, blear near yellow, green near red, and so on.”

“A single and distinct luminous body causes stronger relief in the objects than a diffused light; as may be seen by comparing one side of a landscape illuminated by the sun, and one overshadowed by clouds, and illuminated only by the diffused light of the atmosphere.”

“Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savagestands on the unelastic plank of famine.”

“Where the citizen uses a mere sliver or board, the pioneer uses the whole trunk of a tree.”

“English sense has toiled, but Hindoo wisdom never perspired.”

“Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas”

“Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect.”

“The war made me poignantly aware of the beauty of the world.”

“So fair, so cold; like a morning of pale spring still clinging to winter's chill.”

“The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom.”

“I was the shyest human ever invented, but I had a lion inside me that wouldn't shut up.”

“Hope rises and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain.”

“Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady's window.”

“It is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest.”

“To get everything you want is not a good thing. Disease makes health seem sweet. Hunger leads to the appreciation of being full-fed. Tiredness creates the enjoyment of resting”

“What a strange life I lead- a kind of Cinderella-life-half glitter in crystal shoes, half mice and cinders! But it is a wonderful life all the same.”

“It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky.”