Shadows

Shadows are areas where direct light from a light source cannot reach due to obstruction by an object. A shadow occupies all of the space behind an opaque object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, or reverse projection of the object blocking the light. The sun causes many objects to have shadows and at certain times of the day, when the sun is at certain heights, the length of shadows change.

The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.

Quotes

• Shadows are like plants. They need sunlight simply to exist.
  • Thomas M. Disch, The Shadow, in David G. Hartwell (ed.) Year's Best Fantasy 2, p. 334 (Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction December, 2001)

• There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows.
  • Melisandre in A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter Davos (II).

• Shadows are friends to men in black.
  • Qhorin Halfhand, in A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter Jon (VII).

• "The true moment of shadow is the moment in which you see the point of light in the sky. The single point, and the Shadow that has just gathered you in its sweep ..."
  Always remember.
  The first star hangs between his feet.
  Now —
  • Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973).

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 699-700.

• The worthy gentleman [Mr. Coombe], who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, while his desires were as warm, and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.
  • Edmund Burke, speech at Bristol on Declining the Poll.

• Thus shadow owes its birth to light.
  • John Gay, The Persian, Sun, and Cloud, line 10.

• (Orion) A hunter of shadows, himself a shade.
  • Homer, Odyssey, XI. 572.

• Follow a shadow, it still flies you;
  Seem to fly it, it will pursue.
  • Ben Jonson, song, That Women are but Men's Shadows.

• The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.
  • John Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter VIII. Par. 5.

• Alas! must it ever be so?
  Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
  And fight our own shadows forever?
  • Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), Lucile (1860), Part II, Canto II, Stanza 5.

• Shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights.
  • John Ruskin, Painting.

• Come like shadows, so depart!
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act IV, scene 1, line 111.

• Some there be that shadows kiss;
  Such have but a shadow's bliss.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act II, scene 9, line 66.

• Shadows to-night
  Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
  Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers
  Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act V, scene 3, line 216.

• Chequer'd shadow.
  • William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (c. 1584-1590), Act II, scene 3, line 15.

• If we shadows have offended,
  Think but this, and all is mended...
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream Act V, scene 1, Line 2275

• No matter how satisfying the shade is, one must step out of it. Because if you keep staying in the shade like this, even your own shadow will abandon you.
  • Sanu Sharma, Differences

• Like Hezekiah's, backward runs
  The shadow of my days.
  • Alfred Tennyson, Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue. (Ed. 1842). Changed in 1853 ed. to "Against its fountain upward runs / The current of my days".

• Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ.
  • And the greater shadows fall from the lofty mountains.
  • Virgil, Eclogue, I. 84.