The first known instance of the phrase "a thousand points of light" appears in Arthur C. Clarke's short story "Rescue Party," initially published in Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1946: One entire wall of the control room was taken up by the screen, a great black rectangle that gave an impression of almost infinite depth.
Three of Rugon's slender control tentacles, useless for heavy work but incredibly swift at all manipulation, flickered over the selector dials and the screen lit up with a thousand points of light.
- Location 844, in "The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, RosettaBooks, electronic edition (2016) It was later found in William S. Burroughs' "Lee's Journals," written between 1954 and 1957 and initially published in 1981: The sky over Vienna was a light, hard, china blue, and a cold spring wind whipped Martin's loose gabardine topcoat around his thin body.
Written for Bush by Peggy Noonan and Chris S. Smith, [ circa 1980 Erday Estate, Naples, FL ] the address likened America's clubs and volunteer organizations to "a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.
"[2] He repeated the phrase in his inaugural address on January 20, 1989: I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good.
A 1991 article in The New York Times noted that the phrase had inspired "a host of caustic political satires, including cartoons of devastated communities as 'a thousand points of blight.
[10] In 1990 Bush spearheaded the creation of the Points of Light Foundation, the goal of which was to promote private, non-governmental solutions to social issues.
[1] The foundation's name changed periodically, but following a merger in 2007 with the Atlanta-based HandsOn Network, the conjoined organization came to be called simply Points of Light.