Quotes about midnight (221 quotes, page 3)

“There were often times
when we had no wine to drink,
However, this morning
we fill the empty beakers.
Over the new spring wine
midges hover—
When will we ever
taste its like again?
Tables with funeral meats
stand piled high before us,
Old friends and relatives
come and weep beside us.
We try to speak
but cannot utter words,
We try to see
but our eyes are dim.
Once he used to sleep
within the lofty hall,
Now he will spend the night
out on the lonely moor.
Leaving the city gate
we accompanied him thither
But we were back again
before midnight had come.”

Tao Yuanming (365–427) Chinese poet

"Written in Imitation of an Ancient Bearers' Song"
Translated by William Acker; T'ao the Hermit: Sixty Poems by T'ao Ch'ien (1952), p. 102

Spring , Drink , Sleep , Wine

“Love is also disquiet, the brooding pleasures of doubt, midnights wasted by speculation, the frantic dance round the significance of the last thing she said, the need to see her to have life confirmed.”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

Love, p. 57.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)

Love , Life , Pleasure , Dance

“Come Grief, and sing a solemn dirge
Beneath this midnight shade;
From central darkness now emerge,
And tread the lonely glade.”

Ann Eliza Bleecker (1752–1783) American poet, correspondent

Lines to Grief

Singing

“Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Federal Court statement (1918)
Context: When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

People , Hope , Heart , Joy

“Apotheosis is not
The origin of the major man. He comes,

p>Compact in invincible foils, from reason,
Lighted at midnight by the studious eye,
Swaddled in revery, the object ofThe hum of thoughts evaded in the mind...”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Be Abstract

Light

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1964)
Context: This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.

Night

“Dreams — are well — but Waking's better,
If One wake at Morn —
If One wake at Midnight — better —
Dreaming — of the Dawn”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

450: Dreams — are well — but Waking's better
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Dreams

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

King's often repeated expression that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice" was his own succinct summation of sentiments echoing those of Theodore Parker, who, in "Of Justice and the Conscience" (1853) asserted: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."
1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Context: I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. … When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

Justice , Way , Mountain , Universe

“The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown — of sacred memory — I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Letter to Harriet Tubman (29 August 1868), as quoted in Harriet, the Moses of Her People (1886) by Sarah Hopkins Bradford, p. 135
1860s
Context: Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day — you in the night. I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling, scarred, and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt " God bless you " has been your only reward. The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown — of sacred memory — I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as I know you. It is to me a great pleasure and a great privilege to bear testimony to your character and your works, and to say to those to whom you may come, that I regard you in every way truthful and trustworthy.

People , Star , Freedom , Memory

“Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that for years had been almost deaf were opened to it. Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.”

Karen Blixen book Anecdotes of Destiny

"Babette's Feast"
Anecdotes of Destiny (1953)
Context: Of what happened later in the evening nothing definite can here be stated. None of the guests later on had any clear remembrance of it. They only knew that the rooms had been filled with a heavenly light, as if a number of small halos had blended into one glorious radiance. Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that for years had been almost deaf were opened to it. Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.

People , Winter , Time , Housing

“There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression—those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about—there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)
Context: This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white. We must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter. I know how we feel sometime. There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression—those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about—there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order.

Hate

“It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"The God in the Bowl" (1952)
Context: Arus the watchman grasped his crossbow with shaky hands, and he felt beads of clammy perspiration on his skin as he stared at the unlovely corpse sprawling on the polished floor before him. It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.

Death

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ”

Уильям "Билл" Воган (1915–1977)

New Year