Rainbows

• Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray. ~ Lord Byron

• Caustics are the brightest places in an optical field. They are the singularities of geometrical optics. The most familiar caustic is the rainbow, a grossly distorted image of the Sun in the form of a giant arc in the skyspace of directions, formed by the angular focusing of sunlight that has been twice refracted and once reflected in raindrops." ~ Rene Descartes (1637)

• Each band or level, being a particular manifestation of the spectrum, is what it is only by virtue of the other bands. The color blue is no less beautiful because it exits along side the other colors of a rainbow, and "blueness" itself depends upon the existence of the other colors, for if there were no color but blue, we would never be able to see it.  ~ Ken Wilber

• God put the rainbow in the clouds, not just in the sky... It is wise to realize we already have rainbows in our clouds, or we wouldn't be here.  If the rainbow is in the clouds, then in the worst of time, there is the possibility of seeing hope... We can say "I can be a rainbow in the cloud for someone yet to be."  That may be our calling. ~ Maya Angelou, Harrisburg Forum (November 30, 2001)

• If you mean that the proximity of one color should give beauty to another that terminates near it, observe the rays of the sun in the composition of the rainbow, the colors of which are generated by the falling rain, when each drop in its descent takes every color of the bow.  ~ Leonardo Da Vinci Treatise on Painting, 1490s

• If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. ~ Dolly Parton

• In the face of the sun are great thunderbolts hurled,
  And the storm-clouds have shut out its light;
  But a Rainbow of Promise now shines on the world,
        And the universe thrills at the sight.
  • The Rainbow of Promise by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

• It takes both the sun and the rain to make a beautiful rainbow. ~ Unknown

• Look at the bow in the cloud, in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot see it, is shining still— that up above beyond the cloud is still sunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky. ~ Charles Kingsley

• Look, look, look to the rainbow
  Follow it over the hill and stream
  Look, look, look to the rainbow
  Follow the fellow who follows the dream.
  • "Look to the Rainbow" by E.Y. Harburg and Burton Lane from the musical play (and motion picture) Finian's Rainbow

• My heart leaps up when I behold
  A rainbow in the sky! ~ William Wordsworth

• She was sick with nausea so deep that she perished as she sat. And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint colours a portion of the hill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place it gleamed fiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be. Steadily the colour gathered, mysteriously, from nowhere, it took presence upon itself, there was a faint, vast rainbow. The arc bended and strengthened itself till it arched indomitable, making great architecture of light and colour and the space of heaven, its pedestals luminous in the corruption of new houses on the lowhill, its arch the top of heaven.And the rainbow stood on the earth. She knew that the sordid people who crept hard-scaled and separate on the face of the world's corruption were living still, that the rainbow was arched in their blood and would quiver to life in their spirit, that they would cast off their horny covering of disintegration, that new, clean, naked bodies would issue to a new germination, to a new growth, rising to the light and the wind and the clean rain of heaven. She saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture, the old, brittle corruption of houses and factories swept away, the world built up in a living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-arching heaven. ~ D. H. Lawrence The Rainbow

• Some day I'll wish upon a star
  And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
  Where troubles melt like lemondrops
  Away above the chimney tops,
  That's where you'll find me.
  Somewhere over the rainbow
  Bluebirds fly.
  Birds fly over the rainbow,
  Why then, oh why can't I?
  • Over the Rainbow (lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen) from The Wizard of Oz (1939)

• Somewhere over the rainbow,
  Way up high
  There's a land that I heard of
  Once in a lullaby.
  Somewhere over the rainbow
  Skies are blue
  And the dreams that you dare to dream
  Really do come true.
  • Over the Rainbow (lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen)

• The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow — Hope shining upon the tears of grief. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll The Ghosts

• The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears. ~ John Vance Cheney

• The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. ~ Henry David Thoreau

• Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail. ~ Navajo Song

• We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter. ~ Mark Twain A Tramp Abroad

• We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us never loose sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way. ~ Gloria Gaither

• We of many cultures, languages and races are become one nation. We are the Rainbow People of God.   ~ Desmond Tutu

• Why are there so many songs about rainbows
  And what's on the other side?
  Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
  And rainbows have nothing to hide.
  So we've been told and some choose to believe it
  I know they're wrong, wait and see.
  Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
  The lovers, the dreamers and me.
  • The Rainbow Connection by Paul Williams