Lighthouse Quotes that Apply to Life

They often save ships but there are many ways that we use lighthouse analogies in other areas of life as shown in these lighthouse quotes.

There’s just something about a lighthouse that seems to draw people to them.

And it’s not just that they provide light to help mariners find their way and avoid trouble.

There’s something about the work that they do and the simpleness and steadiness of the lighthouse that people seem to enjoy.

There are many ways that people need “lighthouses” in life such as another person to help guide the way.

Enjoy these lighthouse quotes.

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According to a report by the National Park Service, lighthouses have played a significant role in maritime navigation for centuries and have helped to prevent countless shipwrecks and other disasters.

This history and symbolism may make lighthouse quotes particularly meaningful for those interested in maritime history or related fields.

Don’t forget to also check out these journey quotes celebrating your path to greatness.

If you like this article, we suggest you explore our most popular quotes article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily encouragement. 

Check out more inspirational quotes on our motivational quotes category page.

Lighthouse quotes on how people are like them

A study published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology found that exposure to quotes and affirmations can lead to increased feelings of self-efficacy and motivation.

This suggests that regularly reading or sharing lighthouse quotes may help to inspire and uplift individuals in their personal and professional pursuits.

1. “I feel that we’re all lighthouses, and my job is to shine my light as brightly as I can to the darkness.” – Jim Carrey

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2. “Friends are like lighthouses, with the sources of light coming from their hearts.” – Tom Baker

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3. “Don’t forget that maybe you are the lighthouse in someone’s storm.” – Unknown

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4. “The scars you share become lighthouses for other people who are headed to the same rocks you hit.” – Unknown

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5. “Some people are destined to be a lighthouse for a lost comrade.” – Erin Forbes

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6. “I am lighthouse rather than lifeboat. I do not rescue, but instead help others to find their own way to shore, guiding them by my example.” – Unknown

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7. “Stop turning every others battle into yours. Sometimes amidst of all the wars, all you need to become is the lighthouse, not the sword.” – Akshay Vasu

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8. “A True Friend who leaves heartfelt messages, can be a lighthouse to others, sharing light and truth, which comes from their heart.” – Tom Baker

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9. “Are you looking for a lighthouse? Let me give you an advice: when you improve your own mind, you become your very own lighthouse!” – Mehmet Murat Ildan

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10. “The love within them shone as brightly as the lighthouse beam on the darkest, stormiest night. It broke through her confusion and heartache and filled her with a warm glow.” – Jody Hedlund

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11. “The trouble with drowning in the mess of your own life is that you’re not in any shape to save anyone else. You can’t be a lighthouse when you’re underwater yourself.” – Unknown

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12. “To be a lighthouse, you must be strong enough to resist every kind of storm, to every kind of loneliness and you must have a powerful light inside you!” – Mehmet Murat Ildan

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13. “By spreading knowledge you can live forever. You can be the lighthouse that guides people to safety; a light in the darkest of times.” – Zachariah Renfro

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Meaningful lighthouse quotes

A study published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology found that exposure to quotes and affirmations can lead to increased feelings of self-efficacy and motivation.

This suggests that regularly reading or sharing lighthouse quotes may help to inspire and uplift individuals in their personal and professional pursuits.

14. “The dip of the light meant that the island itself was always left in darkness. A lighthouse is for others; powerless to illuminate the space closest to it.” – M.L. Steadman

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15. “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” – Anne Lamott

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16. “When we buried my mother, some of the light went out of me, and it seemed proper that I should go and live in a place where all the light shone outwards and none of it was there for us.” – Jeanette Winterson

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17. “We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining – they just shine.” – Dwight L. Moody

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18. “A lighthouse doesn’t save the ships; it doesn’t go out and rescue them, it’s just this pillar that helps to guide people home.” – Lea Michele

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19. What does a lighthouse do? I ask myself. It never moves. It cannot hike up its rocky skirt and dash into the ocean to rescue the foundering ship. It cannot calm the waters or clear the shoals. It can only cast light into the darkness. It can only point the way. Yet, through one lighthouse, you guide many ships. Show this old lighthouse the way. –Lisa Wingate

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20. “Lighthouses are not just stone, brick, metal, and glass. There’s a human story at every lighthouse; that’s the story I want to tell.” ― Elinor DeWire

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21. “Lighthouses don’t get all wobbly when the weather gets rough; they just stand there shining.” – Unknown

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Wise lighthouse quotes

22. “If you close your eyes, no lighthouse can help you!” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan

23. “Like a simple little lighthouse, my true ideal is to just be… having no trace of seeking, desiring, imitating, or striving, only light and peace.” – Bodhi Smith

24. “Man must behave like a lighthouse; he must shine day and night for the goodness of everyman.” – Mehmet Murat Ildan

25. “It’s about how you’re like a lighthouse, always searching far into the distance. But the thing you’re looking for is usually close to you and always has been. That’s why you have to look within yourself to find answers instead of searching beyond.” – Susane Colasanti

26. “A fallen lighthouse is more dangerous than a reef.” – Proverb

27. “Is the beam from a lighthouse affected by howling wind and rain? It remains perfectly steadfast and unaffected by the storm. Your true self is like that. Nothing can ever harm you once you are consciously aware that it is so.” – Vernon Howard

28. “If you open your eyes very wide and look around you carefully, you will always see a lighthouse which will lead you to the right path! Just watch around you carefully!” – Mehmet Murat Ildan

The Lighthouse quotes from the movie

29. “How long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two days? Where are we? Help me to recollect!” – The Lighthouse

30. “Just like any man – Trying to settle down quiet-like with some earnings.” – The Lighthouse

31. “The light is mine.” – The Lighthouse

32. “Doldrums. Doldrums. Eviler than the devil. Boredom makes men to villains.” – The Lighthouse

33. “It’s the calm before the storm, Winslow.” – The Lighthouse

34. “I’m damn-well wedded to this here light, and she’s been a finer, truer, quieter wife than any alive-blooded woman.” – The Lighthouse

35. “I’ve seen you sparring with a gull. Best leave them be. Bad luck to kill a sea bird.” – The Lighthouse

More lighthouse quotes

36. “Look to the lighthouse of the Lord. There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what its beacon light can rescue.” – Thomas S Monson

37. “I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They were built only to serve.” – George Bernard Shaw

38. “She is like a revolving lighthouse; pitch darkness alternating with a dazzling brilliance!” – Henry James

39. “God built lighthouses to see people through storms. Then he built storms to remind people to find lighthouses.” – Shannon Alder

40. “The lighthouse does great service to humanity yet it is the slave to those who trim the lamps.” – Alice Wellington Rollins

41. “At some time, often when we least expect it, we all have to face overwhelming challenges. When the unthinkable happens, the lighthouse is hope. Once we find it, we must cling to it with absolute determination. When we have hope, we discover powers within ourselves we may have never known- the power to make sacrifices, to endure, to heal, and to love. Once we choose hope, everything is possible.” – Christopher Reeve

42. “Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.” – Charles Dickens

43. “I wish to spend a lifetime near a lighthouse where loneliness will be the glimmer of luminous prancing upon ocean waves… rising and falling only for my breathing.” – Munia Khan

44. “He slept that night thinking of loves and lighthouses. That one love might shine to bring all loves home.” – Jamie O’Neill

45. “The lighthouse of the Lord beckons to all as we sail the seas of life.” – Thomas S Monson

46. “A good book is a lighthouse; a wise man is a lighthouse; conscience is a lighthouse; compassion is a lighthouse; science is a lighthouse! They all show us the true path! Keep them in your life and remain safe in the rocky and dark waters of life!” – Mehmet Murat Ildan

47. “Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.” – Charles Simic

48. “Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse.” – Japanese Proverb

49. “Lighthouses are endlessly suggestive signifiers of both human isolation and our ultimate connectedness to each other.” – Virginia Woolf

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50. “Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.” – E.P. Whipple

Thought-provoking lighthouse quotes about this important structure

51. “The past is a lighthouse not a port.” — Russian Proverb      

52. “Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.” — Benjamin Franklin

53. “Be a lighthouse. Shine for others when they are in darkness.” — Unknown 

54. “But as through the fog a lighthouse, / Or as Northern Lights o’er darkness, / Gleamed his thought with light and guidance.” — Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

55. “Once the lighthouse is seen, the rest of the sea is ignored.” — Terri Guillemets

 56. “The lighthouse that stands unintentionally stoic and tall and lights the way for those out at sea”. — Buffy Sammons

57. “Some people in our life are like a lighthouse. They guide us to safety as we navigate the coast.” — Mohammed Sekouty

58. “A lighthouse is not interested in who gets its light! It just gives it without thinking! Giving light is its nature!” — Mehmet Murat Ildan

59. “If you are a lighthouse, you cannot hide yourself; if you hide yourself, you cannot be a lighthouse!” — Mehmet Murat Ildan

60. “Every lighthouse knows that when the giant waves come, no one will help! And when you know that no one will help you, you fight more seriously!” — Mehmet Murat

Lighthouse Quotes from Poems

61. “The rocky ledge runs far into the sea, / And on its outer point, some miles away, / The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry, / A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

62. “The lighthouse shines across the sea; / The homing fieldfares sing for glee: / ‘Behold the shore!'” – Ada Cambridge

63. “And fair across to where we know / The shelving sea cliffs are— / The lighthouse, with a still faint glow, / Beneath a twinkling star.” – Henry Lawson

64. “He’s the One I always run to / When the waves won’t let me be / The lighthouse that I turn to / On a rough and troubled sea.” – Mario William Vitale

65. “It might have been the lighthouse spark / Some sailor, rowing in the dark, / Had importuned to see!” – Emily Dickinson

66. “The long still day is ending / In hollow and on height, / The lighthouse seaward sending / White rays of steady light” – Roderic Quinn

67. “How at a crossroads he there stood / a lighthouse shining, and always would.” – Kurt Philip Behm

68. “And yonder slender stream of changing light, / Now white, now crimson, tremulously bright, / Where dark the lighthouse stands, with fiery crown.” – Celia Thaxter

69. “A far-off light across the waste, / As dim as dim might be, / That came and went like a lighthouse gleam / On a black night at sea.” – William Cosmo Monkhouse

70. “For, surely as I see tonight / The glancing of the lighthouse light, / Against the sky, across the bay, / As turn by turn it falls my way” – Arthur Symons

Lighthouse quotes to ruminate on

71. “If lighthouse becomes a burning candle,
flickered upon ocean’s insanity.
Your sailing heart there anchors to handle
the obsessed breeze towards sand dune’s vanity.”
― Munia Khan

72. “Knowing when and how to change course is important to success. Self-doubt is a lighthouse that will keep you from running aground. Don’t become shipwrecked on the rocks of time. Be willing to rethink your decisions and change course.” ― Harley King

73. “It’s because a lighthouse is two-faced, and this is how she feels each time she visits. A lighthouse is both an invitation and a warning. A lighthouse says Welcome home. But next to that, right after that, it also says Danger.” ― Nathan Hill

74. “Third eye of the sea,
the lonely lighthouse
never sleeps.”
― Nanette L. Avery

75. “An awake heart is like a lighthouse helping others to find a safe way home.” ― Rolf van der Wind

76. “A stationary stone ship… A granite boat that doesn’t pitch… that takes us nowhere… that never docks… Onboard this lighthouse, we’ll never get ashore…”― Christophe Chabouté

77. “You have to scuba dive in the Alexandrian harbor if you want to see what remains of the lighthouse of Cleopatra’s day, and the water in the Alexandrian harbor is not really something you want to come into contact with.” – Stacy Schiff

78. “Every man should use his intellect, not as he uses his lamp in the study, only for his own seeing, but as the lighthouse uses its lamps, that those afar off on the seas may see the shining, and learn their way.” – Henry Ward Beecher

79. “And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me.” – Ford Madox Ford

80. “We go by the lighthouse; paddle out. After we got out, we paddled way down to get the biggest peak.” – George Downing

Shining lighthouse quotes

81. “Be like a lighthouse and shine.” -Author Unknown

82. “Shine bright like a lighthouse.” –Author Unknown

83. “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must also be present.” -Francis Bacon

84. “Spread light, be the lighthouse.” – Yogi Tea

85. “Let these eyes be a lighthouse. Let these arms be a safe harbour. Let this heart be a long awaited shore.” -Tiffany Aurora

86. “You were my lighthouse when I was lost at sea without you, I would never have found me.” -Gemma Troy

87. “Let hope be your Lighthouse, beckoning you through stormy seas.” -Jessica de la Davies

Lighthouse Quotes about its Importance in Saving People

88. “Seek not a lighthouse greater than the human mind!” – Mehmet Murat Ildan

89. “She pulled off Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and settled down in a comfortable leather chair by the fire to read.” – Lucinda Riley

90. “In the distance I see a lighthouse. The light washes over us and continues on its rotation. This time, I don’t know where the light will guide us.” – Lauren DeStefano

91. “Why’s there a pharos here?” he said. “You don’t put a lighthouse where no one’s going to go. You put it somewhere dangerous where they have to go.” – China Mieville

92. “The lighthouse of the Lord sends forth signals readily recognized and never failing.” – Thomas S. Monson

93. “A lighthouse is kind of like an angel. Most of the people the light helps take it for granted. Until it’s not there.” – Jeffrey Perren

94. “You are the lighthouse. The final destination. You can sleep easy, my dearest. The others . . . they are the shifting waves, But you are the harbor.” – Margot S. Baumann

95. “That night, at the lighthouse, everything else faded away and my entire world became Sofia Claremont.” – Bella Forrest

96. “Be the lighthouse that bears the torment of the storm, but never forget to show the saving lights of life.” – Debasish Mridha

97. “When one cautions you, he is a ‘lighthouse’ and if one find faults with the lighthouse, when will that ship reach safely [to its destination]?” – Dada Bhagwan

More Lighthouse Quotes And Sayings

97. “The library is every child’s lighthouse. It is every person’s sanctuary. It is every town and country’s fortress in the face of ignorance, intrusion, and bad behavior.” ― Amy Bloom

98. “Skepticism is a barren coast, without a harbor or lighthouse.” ― Henry Ward Beecher

99. “A holy life will produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; they only shine.” ― Dwight L. Moody

100. “I forgot and left the lighthouse all night. Next day the sun wouldn’t rise.” ― Steven Wright

101. “When I write songs, I try to write in a way to reach as many people as I can, to be a lighthouse versus a flashlight.” ― Chris Tomlin

102. “Everything is a hero: A lighthouse which gives light to us; weeds that provide shelter to little insects; a water drop which quenches a thirst ant! Everything that helps us to live is a hero!” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan

103. “For me, a writer should be more like a lighthouse keeper, just out there by himself. He shouldn’t get his ideas from other people all around him.” ― Robert M. Pirsig

104. “Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouses, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.” ― Immanuel Kant

105. “Grief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature.” ― Anthony Rapp

106. “The meager lighthouse all in white, haunting the seaboard, as if it were the ghost of an edifice that had once had color and rotundity, dripped melancholy tears after its late buffeting by the waves.” ― Charles Dickens

Famous Lighthouse Quotes 

107. “I had a classmate who fitted for college by the lamps of a lighthouse, which was more light, we think, than the University afforded.” — Henry David Thoreau

108. “A lighthouse is more useful than a church.” — Benjamin Franklin

109. “What pioneer ever had chart and a lighthouse to steer by?” — Catherine Drinker Bowen

110. “The Lighthouse’ isn’t scary. A few people have said it is, but I don’t think it is.” — Robert Eggers

111. “The Witch’ was very well planned, but ‘The Lighthouse’ was so much more so.” — Robert Eggers

112. “Unbelievable scenery, with the backdrop of the Lighthouse and the boats. Great place to come out and enjoy some good times with friends.” — Merv Adams

113. “A lighthouse keeps sailors from danger, to navigate from danger out there. The light is a comforting thing to see.” — Catherine Drinker Bowen

114. “Somewhat of goodness, something true From sun and spirit shining through All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark, Attests the presence everywhere Of love and providential care.” — John Greenleaf Whittier

115. “Open your eyes and look around carefully at the moments when you think you have failed, because the lighthouse of the success mysteriously appears amongst the fog at those very moments!” — Mehmet Murat Ildan

116. “I am a lighthouse worn by the weather and the waves. I keep my lamp lit to warn the sailors on their way.” — Nickel Creek

Lighthouse Quotes To Light Up The Sea

117. “The lighthouse braces against the wind / Silver light reaching for the lost / Laced windows, worried eyes / Fearful of the cost.” — Art Davis

118. “A lighthouse may seem old and cracked / But can save you when you fight against the gale / And so you look for a pair of bright eyes / When everything else seems to fail.” — Morten Maehre

119. “The waves crash in / The tide rolls out / It’s an angry sea / But there is no doubt / That the lighthouse / Will keep shining out / To warn a lonely sailor.” — Rich Mullins

120. “Cause there’s a lighthouse, in the harbor / Shining faithfully / Pouring its light out, across the water / For this sinking soul to see / That someone out there still believes in me.” — Jenny L. Yates

121. “Searching for some kind of direction, / Looking for a guiding light / Needed to see a lighthouse, / Like a ship on a stormy night.” — D’Antignac

122. “Like a lighthouse on the darkest night / Your love will always shine / And though I may have lost my way / That beacon, I will find.” — John Edward Moffat

123. “The lighthouse lost it’s beam / And now all I see / Is the face of the cliffs between the moonlight waxing.” — Garrett Michael Zablocki

124. “Lighthouse tall and grand / Standing on that cold headland / Shine your light across the sea / For a wayward sailor girl like me.” — Chad Alan Gracey

125. “Holding up the fire, / I’m lighting up the sky / Like a lighthouse on the ocean, / I bring your home alright.” — David Nesta Marley

126. “These are all I have. I do not have the wide, bright beacon of some solid old lighthouse, guiding ships safely home, past the jaggedrocks. I only have these little glimmers that flicker and then go out.” — Rebecca Wells

What did you learn from these Lighthouse quotes?

Have you benefited from a person acting as a lighthouse in your life?

Or have you been a lighthouse to someone else?

There are many lessons that we can all learn from both the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper.

They are steadily at work when others have turned in for the day making sure that the light never goes out.

It’s not just people that can act as lighthouses in our lives.

Many people find guiding principles from their religion and even books.

If you need a steady message in your life, look for the people and resources that can be that for you.

And if you don’t feel you need it right now, it might be that you’re supposed to be the lighthouse to someone else.

What’s your biggest takeaway from these lighthouse quotes and sayings?

Do you have any other inspirational quotes to add?

Let us know in the comment section below.