
„What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway!“
— Matka Tereza Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin 1910 - 1997
A collection of quotes on the topic of night, day, likeness, time.
„What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway!“
— Matka Tereza Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin 1910 - 1997
„If you can make it through the night, there's a brighter day.“
— Tupac Shakur rapper and actor 1971 - 1996
Variant: For every dark night, there's a brighter day.
„I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.“
— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890
„Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.“
— Victor Hugo, book Les Misérables
Source: Les Misérables
„Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.“
— William Blake, book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 41
„Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?“
— Terry Pratchett, book Going Postal
Source: Going Postal
„A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.“
— Marilyn Monroe American actress, model, and singer 1926 - 1962
Variant: A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
Source: On Being Blonde (2007), p. 53
Total 3933 quotes night, filter:
— Lil Peep American rapper 1996 - 2017
Song The Brightside, Album: Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 1
„Women are beautiful in the light of the day, but are even more so in the shadows of the night.“
— Andrzej Majewski Polish writer and photographer 1966
Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)
„The night is my best friend. It calms the storm in my soul and it lets the guiding stars rise.“
— Joseph Goebbels Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897 - 1945
Die Nacht ist meine beste Freundin. Sie glättet den Sturm in der Seele und lässt die weisenden Sterne aufgehen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
— Robert Downey Jr. American actor 1965
Quoted in David Carr, "Been Up, Been Down. Now? Super." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/movies/20carr.html?_r=4&pagewanted=2&8dpc&oref=slogin&, New York Times (2008-04-20)
— Pink (singer) American singer-songwriter 1979
Dear Mr. President, featuring the Indigo Girls, written by Pink and Billy Mann
Song lyrics, I'm Not Dead (2006)
„The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.“
— Friedrich Nietzsche German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist 1844 - 1900
— Dorothy Parker American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist 1893 - 1967
Source: "The Flaw in Paganism" in Death and Taxes (1931)
— Kobe Bryant American basketball player 1978 - 2020
A speech after Bryant's last game, 13 April 2016, posted on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0mxPXIpLY&t=5s.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, book A Few Figs from Thistles
Misattributed
Source: Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.
— Jordan Peterson Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology 1962
Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts
— Leonard Bernstein American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist 1918 - 1990
Leonard Bernstein, statement of 1953, quoted in A Wonderful Life : 50 Eulogies to Lift the Spirit (2006) by Cyrus M. Copeland, p. 190
„She got me workin' day and night,
And I've been workin'
From sun-up to midnight.“
— Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009
Off the Wall (1979)
— Michael Jackson American singer, songwriter and dancer 1958 - 2009
You Are My Life
Invincible (2001)
— Milkha Singh Indian track and field athlete 1935
While at the EME Army center in 1951 in the cross country race he was declared 6 in the top 10 who among the 500 who ran. Quoted in ‘Flying Sikh' takes a nostalgic jog down memory lane, 6 April 2012, 13 December 2013, The Hindu http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-sports/flying-sikh-takes-a-nostalgic-jog-down-memory-lane/article3285904.ece,
„One night comes suddenly, I will add your kingdom to my empire.“
— Mehmed II Ottoman sultan 1432 - 1481
Source: Freely, John (The Grand Turk)
— Dwayne Johnson American actor and professional wrestler 1972
The Rock's return to WWE Raw as host of WrestleMania XXVII (14 February, 2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8ejiG5-BtA&feature=related.
— Clive James Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist 1939 - 2019
Closing lines, p. 174
Memoirs, Unreliable Memoirs (1980)
Context: As I begin this last paragraph, outside my window a misty afternoon drizzle gently but inexorably soaks the City of London. Down there in the street I can see umbrellas commiserating with each other. In Sydney Harbour, twelve thousand miles away and ten hours from now, the yachts will be racing on the crushed diamond water under a sky the texture of powdered sapphires. It would be churlish not to concede that the same abundance of natural blessings which gave us the energy to leave has every right to call us back. All in, the whippy's taken. Pulsing like a beacon through the days and nights, the birthplace of the fortunate sends out its invisible waves of recollection. It always has and it always will, until even the last of us come home.
— Arthur Rimbaud French Decadent and Symbolist poet 1854 - 1891
Source: A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat
„Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night!“
— John Lydon English singer, songwriter, and musician 1956
At the end of the last Sex Pistols concert, Winterland Theater, San Francisco, California (14 January 1978)
— Karen Blixen, book Out of Africa
Source: Out of Africa (1937)
Context: People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. Great landscapes create themselves, long splendid views, rich and delicate colours, roads, houses, which he has never seen or heard of...
„Many solemn nights
Blond moon, we stand and marvel…
Sleeping our noons away“
— Bashō Matsuo Japanese poet 1644 - 1694
Source: Japanese Haiku
„Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.“
— William Blake English Romantic poet and artist 1757 - 1827
— Hazrat Inayat Khan Indian Sufi 1882 - 1927
Source: Thinking Like The Universe: The Sufi Path Of Awakening
— Victor Hugo French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802 - 1885
Part 2, Book 1, Ch. 2
Variant translation: What makes night within us may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three (1874)
Context: Cimourdain was a pure-minded but gloomy man. He had "the absolute" within him. He had been a priest, which is a solemn thing. Man may have, like the sky, a dark and impenetrable serenity; that something should have caused night to fall in his soul is all that is required. Priesthood had been the cause of night within Cimourdain. Once a priest, always a priest.
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.
„"What do you do from morning to night?" "I endure myself."“
— Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born
— Pink (singer) American singer-songwriter 1979
of your life
Bad Influence, written by Pink, Billy Mann, Butch Walker, and Robin Mortensen Lynch & Niklas Olovson
Song lyrics, Funhouse (2008)
— Anton LaVey, book The Satanic Bible
As quoted in the Introduction by Burton H. Wolfe
The Satanic Bible (1969)
— Daniel Radcliffe English actor 1989
About getting the part of Harry Potter http://www.danradcliffe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=28
— Leonardo DiCaprio American actor and film producer 1974
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
— Scott Cawthon American independent video game designer 1971
— Milkha Singh Indian track and field athlete 1935
The Race of My Life: An Autobiography Milkha Singh (2013)
— Marilyn vos Savant US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer 1946
As quoted in What Type Am I? : Discover Who You Really Are (1998) by Renee Baron, p. 110
— Paul Tibbets United States Air Force pilot 1915 - 2007
1975 interview http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7073441.stm
— Dwayne Johnson American actor and professional wrestler 1972
Interview with WWE.com (October 2005).
— Wilhelm Reich, book Listen, Little Man!
Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: "What right do you have to tell me things?" I can see this question in your apprehensive look. I hear this question from your impertinent mouth, Little Man. You are afraid to look at yourself, you are afraid of criticism, Little Man, just as you are afraid of the power they promise you. You would not know how to use this power. You dare not think that you ever might experience your self differently: free instead of cowed; open instead of tactical; loving openly instead of like a thief in the night. You despise yourself Little Man. You say: "Who am I to have an opinion of my own, to determine my own life and to declare the world to be mine?" You are right: Who are you to make a claim to your life?
— Muhammad Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam 570 - 632
Sahih Muslim, Book 001, Number 0142
Sunni Hadith
Context: It is narrated on the authority of 'Abdullah b. Umar that the Messenger of Allah observed: O womenfolk, you should give charity and ask much forgiveness for I saw you in bulk amongst the dwellers of Hell. A wise lady among them said: Why is it, Messenger of Allah, that our folk is in bulk in Hell? Upon this the Holy Prophet observed: You curse too much and are ungrateful to your spouses. I have seen none lacking in common sense and failing in religion but (at the same time) robbing the wisdom of the wise, besides you. Upon this the woman remarked: What is wrong with our common sense and with religion? He (the Holy Prophet) observed: Your lack of common sense (can be well judged from the fact) that the evidence of two women is equal to one man, that is a proof of the lack of common sense, and you spend some nights (and days) in which you do not offer prayer and in the month of Ramadan (during the days) you do not observe fast, that is a failing in religion. This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Abu Tahir with this chain of transmitters.
„It all comes down to the last person you think of at night, that's where the heart is.“
— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994
Original: Tutto si riduce all'ultima persona a cui pensi la notte, è lì che si trova il cuore.
Source: In Una sorcia bianca – nella raccolta Storie di ordinaria follia
— Henry Beston, book Northern Farm
Source: Northern Farm
„I saved a girl from being attacked last night. I controlled myself.“
— Rodney Dangerfield American actor and comedian 1921 - 2004
Variant: I saved a girl from being attacked last night. I controlled myself.
— William Shakespeare, book Romeo and Juliet
Variant: Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.
Source: Romeo and Juliet
„I’d ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did.“
— Daniel Handler, book Why We Broke Up
Source: Why We Broke Up
„Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.“
— Murasaki Shikibu, book The Tale of Genji
Source: Tale of Genji, The Tale of Genji, trans. Arthur Waley, Ch. 1
„You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.“
— Saul Bellow Canadian-born American writer 1915 - 2005
As quoted in The #1 New York Times Bestseller (1992) by John Bear, p. 93
General sources
„There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.“
— George Carlin, book Brain Droppings
Source: Brain Droppings
„The sky hides the night behind it and shelters the people beneath from the horror that lies above.“
— Paul Bowles American composer, writer, translator 1910 - 1999
„The moon like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.“
Night, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)
— William Shakespeare, book Romeo and Juliet
Variant: When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Source: Romeo and Juliet
— Yasunari Kawabata Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner 1899 - 1972
Source: House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories
„Bob says hello," He told the stars.
The Argo II sailed into the night.“
— Rick Riordan, book The House of Hades
Variant: Bob says hello," he told the stars.
Source: The House of Hades
„Go girl, seek happy nights to happy days“
— William Shakespeare English playwright and poet 1564 - 1616