What is beam?

Famous quotes containing the word beam:

    How can one beam alone support a house?
    Chinese proverb.

    It was at that moment, just after Krug had fallen through the bottom of a confused dream and sat up on the straw with a gasp—and just before his reality, his remembered hideous misfortune could pounce upon him—it was then that I felt a pang of pity for Adam and slid towards him along an inclined beam of pale light—causing instantaneous madness, but at least saving him from the senseless agony of his logical fate.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
    Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 7:3.

    From the Sermon on the Mount.