Context

This line was spoken by Mufasa (voiced by James Earl Jones) in the film The Lion King (1994), directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff.

Boundaries are important in life. You don't want to come home and see a bunch of your roommate's ratty T-shirts on your bed, and we're pretty sure that the laundromat's employees don't want the dishwashers from the pizza place next door doing dishes in their sink. And in The Lion King universe, the boundary between light and dark has kept Mufasa's kingdom orderly, even if his majordomo Zazu is always complaining about some minor incident involving cheetahs or water buffaloes.

This is something Mufasa tries to teach his young, rambunctious son Simba in The Lion King as he tries to instill some regal responsibility in the little cat, who just wants to break into song, play with his friends, and dance on top of hippos and elephants.

Unfortunately, Simba doesn't listen to him, and leaves his father's lands to visit an elephant graveyard on his evil Uncle Scar's advice. You'd think this would be no big deal, but stepping out of bounds leads to Simba's kidnapping and sets the wheels of Scar's regicide plan in motion.

Something to think about the next time you feel like ignoring your parents.

Where you've heard it

You've probably heard this quote when you were a kid, and your parents didn't want you to go into the creepy woods behind the playground or their office or the convenience store that you had to cross four lanes of traffic to get to.

Additional Notable References

Through the power of the all-knowing Internet, this quote has gained full-on meme status.

• Here is the domesticated cat version of the quote.
• According to this "highly reliable" meme site (I hope you know this is written in sarcasm font.), the "everything light touches" meme originated in Australia in 2012. Because Campbelltown and Toowoomba don't like each other for some reason.
• You can basically use this quote to throw shade on any geographical location you're not a fan of, like this one about Boston.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Quoting memes in public is tacky, but not pretentious, so you could do much worse.