Dark in Chinese / Japanese...

黎明前的黑暗 is the most natural way to write “The night is darkest before the dawn,” in Chinese.

The words break down this way by meaning this way:
1.黎明 dawn or daybreak
2.前 before, in front, ago, former, previous, and/or earlier
3.的 (possessive particle) of
4.黑暗 dark, darkly, or darkness

If you try to understand the Chinese word order and grammar, it's like, “Before dawn is the darkest [time].”

黑闇女 is a Buddhist title that means “dark sister,” “dark one,” or “dark woman.”

There are two sisters:
One is the deva, 功德女 (“merit” or “achieving”), who causes people to acquire wealth.
The other is the “dark one,” 黑闇女, which causes people to spend and waste.

These sisters always accompany each other.

黑暗天使 means “Dark Angel” in Chinese.

The first character means black, but the second means dark by itself, so this can also be written with the first character dropped.

The last two characters mean angel.

暗い天使 means “Dark Angel,” in Japanese.

The first character means dark, gloomy, hidden, or secret.

The second character is a connecting article.

The last two characters mean angel.

暗天使 is the shortest way to write, “Dark Angel,” in Chinese.

This literally reads, “dark heaven's messenger.”

天使 means “heaven's messenger” but is always understood as “angel.”

This would be pronounced "kura tenshi" in Japanese. This has the same meaning in Japanese, but not a common title. If you manage to find dark angel written in Japan, it would probably be ダーク エンジェル (Dāku Enjeru), which is a transliteration of the English title into Japanese, or 暗い天使 (kurai tenshi) which is a specifically Japanese title.

闇 is the shortest and universal way (in Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja) to write “darkness.”

In Chinese, this can mean dark, gloomy, hidden, secret, to shut the door, or unilluminated.

In Japanese, this can mean darkness, the dark, black-marketeering, dark, shady, or illegal.

In old Korean Hanja, this can mean dark, obscure, hidden, or secret.

Note that there is an alternate form of this character. It is used as an alternate in all three languages (that rarely happens). You can see this alternate version to the right. If you want to order that version, please click on that character, instead of the button above.

信唸是在黎明前的黑闇中能感到光明的鳥 is a philosophical poem/quote from Indian Poet and Philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore.

Rabindranath Tagore, 1915

This quote is not sourced, and therefore several variations exist in English. Some suggest the original was in the Bengali language.

This, of course, is the Chinese translation that has the meaning of, “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

More about Rabindranath Tagore

兼聽則明偏聽則暗 is an ancient Chinese proverb about getting all the information from all sides so that you truly understand a situation.

Wei Zheng

A man named Wei Zheng lived between 580-643 AD. He was a noble and wise historian and minister in the court of the early Tang Dynasty. The emperor once asked him, “What should an emperor do to understand the real-world situation, and what makes an emperor out-of-touch with reality?”

Wei Zheng replied, “Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened; listen to only one side and you will be left in the dark.”

Then Wei Zheng went on to cite examples of leaders in history that were victorious after heeding both sides of the story, and other leaders that met their doom because they believed one-sided stories which often came from flattering lips.

Please note that there is an unwritten rule when the same character appears twice in the same phrase, the calligrapher will alter the appearance so that no two characters are exactly alike in the same piece. This calligraphy has two repeating characters that will be written differently than they appear here.