Shadows can symbolize both the lack of light and the hidden or darker aspects of ourselves, pique our interest and pique our imagination.
Shadows have long been a popular subject in the field of art and literature and signifies many facets of the human experience.
In spiritual and philosophical teachings shadows have often been utilized as metaphors.
Shadows are one of life’s most intriguing and interesting occurrences, appearing in a variety of forms and shapes ranging from natural phenomena to psychological concepts and spiritual signs.
Inspirational Shadow Quotes
To light a candle is to cast a shadow. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin.
The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow. ~ George R. R. Martin.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
If you don’t have any shadows you’re not in the light. ~ Lady Gaga.
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. ~ Carl Jung.
We never see others. Instead, we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations. ~ Chuck Palahniuk.
I like my shadow; it reminds me that I exist. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
It’s part of what we call the Shadow, all the dark parts of us we can’t face. It’s the thing that, if we don’t deal with it, eventually poisons our lives. ~ Michael Gruber.
The life of a human being is like a shadow. ~ Latin Proverb.
The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow. ~ Leonardo da Vinci.
But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows. ~ Immanuel Kant.
Light enhances but its shadow deletes, thus giving the picture its depth. ~ Augusto De Luca.
It is only through shadows that one comes to know the light. ~ St. Catherine of Siena.
Even the purest cast a black shadow. ~ Kaitlyn Jones.
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Best Shadow Quotes
The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow. ~ Jay Kristoff.
Some shadows are so long, they arrive before the light. ~ Terry Pratchett.
Don’t be afraid of the shadows, it only means there’s a light nearby. ~ Amy Lee.
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. ~ Michelangelo Buonarroti.
One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it. ~ Elizabeth Bowen.
A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines. ~ Benjamin Franklin.
The dearest friend on earth is but a mere shadow compared with Jesus Christ. ~ Oswald Chambers.
Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness. ~ Leonardo da Vinci.
Because you don’t notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right. ~ Libba Bray.
Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow’s speed. ~ Howard Nemerov.
False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade. ~ John Christian Bovee.
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.
Some illusions…are the shadows of great truths. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Love is the pursuit of shadows. ~ Margaret Atwood.
I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow. ~ Sylvia Plath.
There is no light without shadow, just as there is no happiness without pain. ~ Isabel Allende.
We are linked by our shadows, not by our light. ~ Jun Mochizuki.
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow. ~ Charles Swain.
Famous Shadow Quotes
An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Oh Joy! For he was there: the huge Lion, shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath him. ~ C. S. Lewis.
Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. ~ George P. Shultz.
Befriend your shadow and life will be easier! ~ Robert Jabert.
Most abstract terms are shadows that conceal a void. ~ Joseph Joubert.
Every life has death and every light has shadow. Be content to stand in the light and let the shadow fall where it will. ~ Mary Stewart.
To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. ~ Carl Jung.
I think that light and shadow have exactly the same duality that exists between life and death. ~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo.
Remember, you have no companions but your shadow. ~ Genghis Khan.
Shadows cannot see themselves in the mirror of the sun. ~ Evita Peron.
There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. ~ Albert Camus.
Every light has its shadow, and every shadow hath a succeeding morning. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus.
Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six. ~ Leo Tolstoy.
What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? ~ Mikhail Bulgakov.
Turn and face the light, and all you see is brightness. Turn and face shadow, and all of life will appear before you. ~ Stan Sudan.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. ~ Pablo Neruda.
Popular Shadow Quotes
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier, and simpler. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche.
Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow. ~ W.H. Auden.
May your feet ever walk in the light of two suns… and may the moonshadow never fall on you… ~ Robert Fanney.
There is strong shadow where there is much light. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Like a shadow, I am and I am not. ~ Rumi.
A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is surrounded by deeper shadow. ~ Leonardo da Vinci.
To any white body receiving the light from the sun, or the air, the shadows will be of a bluish cast. ~ Leonardo da Vinci.
Events cast long shadows before. One such event would be a war. But how are shadows to be seen When total darkness fills the screen? ~ Bertolt Brecht.
My shadow serves as the friend I crave. ~ Anna Akhmatova.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Light is the shadow of god. ~ Plato.
Never in its life has the sun seen shade, Never in its life seen a shadow where it falls. ~ Laurence Housman.
Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow… ~ Louisa May Alcott.
Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. ~ George R. R. Martin.
Top Shadow Quotes
Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun. ~ Hilaire Belloc.
Life is a mixture of light and shadow, calm and storm, and it’s all good. ~ Susan W. Krebs.
Shadow is a color as light is, but less brilliant; light and shadow are only the relation of two tones. ~ Paul Cezanne.
Life is short, and time is swift; Roses fade, and shadows shift. ~ Ebenezer Elliott.
The shadows are as important as the light. ~ Charlotte Bronte.
Perhaps a man’s character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing. ~ Abraham Lincoln.
Shadow owes its birth to light. ~ John Gay.
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. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke.
When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. ~ Gautama Buddha.
All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow. ~ Leo Tolstoy.
Capture a shadow, dance with the wind, stand in a rainbow, begin at the end. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher.
Short Shadow Quotes
The shadows are only the darkest when the light is at its brightest. ~ Glenn Beck.
Be kind to your shadow. ~ Rebecca Lawless.
Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations. ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
I don’t pretend to know anybody well. People are like shadows to me and I am like a shadow. ~ Gwen John.
A human being is only breath and shadow. ~ Sophocles.
Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream. ~ Euripedes.
So these were the 81 quotes about Shadows.
If these quotes and sayings connect with you, check out our other posts on obsession quotes and social anxiety quotes.
Further Reading of Quotes:
