“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.”

Invictus (1875)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerab…" by William Ernest Henley?
William Ernest Henley photo
William Ernest Henley 29
English poet, critic and editor 1849–1903

Related quotes

Roald Amundsen photo

“So we arrived, and planted our flag at the geographical South Pole. Thanks be to God!”

Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) Norwegian polar researcher, who was the first to reach the South Pole

A quote also displayed at the geographical South Pole.

William Blake photo

“This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

1810s, The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)

Andy Partridge photo
Isaac Watts photo

“Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul;
The mind's the standard of the man.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

"False Greatness" in Horae Lyricae Book II (1706).
Compare: "I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man", Seneca, On a Happy Life (L'Estrange's Abstract), chap. i
&: "It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is in our immortal soul", Attributed uncertainly to Ovid
1700s

A.A. Milne photo
Edmund Hillary photo

“I am hell-bent for the South Pole — God willing and crevasses permitting.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Comment (28 December 1957) eight days before he reached the South Pole as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, as quoted in news summaries (5 January 1958)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all
My friends and brother souls,
With all the peoples, great and small,
That wheel between the poles.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Epilogue to The Charge of the heavy Brigade, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adolf Hitler photo

“There are Germans and Poles in Europe, and they ought to live together in agreement. The Poles cannot think of Europe without the Germans and the Germans cannot think of Europe without the Poles.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech in Berlin (24 October 1933), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Night gives a black look to everything, whatever it may be.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: Essays and Aphorisms

James Anthony Froude photo

“It was brought home to me that two men may be as sincere, as earnest, as faithful, as uncompromising, and yet hold opinions far asunder as the poles.”

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: It was brought home to me that two men may be as sincere, as earnest, as faithful, as uncompromising, and yet hold opinions far asunder as the poles. I have before said that I think the moment of this conviction is the most perilous crisis of our lives; for myself, it threw me at once on my own responsibility, and obliged me to look for myself at what men said, instead of simply accepting all because they said it. I begin to look about me to listen to what had to be said on many sides of the question, and try, as far as I could, to give it all fair hearing.

Related topics