Quotes about moon
page 6

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“The Lake was that deep blue, which night
Wears in the zenith moon's full light;
With pebbles shining thro', like gems
Lighting sultana's diadems :”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(2nd October 1824) The Lake
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Harry Chapin photo
Giovanni Boccaccio photo

“A kissed mouth doesn't lose its freshness, for like the moon it always renews itself.”

Bocca baciata non perde ventura, anzi rinnuova come fa la luna.
Second Day, Seventh Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)

John Milton photo
Zisi photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“The moon is nothing
But a circumambulating aphrodisiac
Divinely subsidized to provoke the world
Into a rising birth-rate.”

Christopher Fry (1907–2005) British writer

Thomas Mendip, in The Lady's Not for Burning, act 3 (1949)

Gerard Bilders photo

“The moon appeared for some time [in the Savoy, Switzerland] and the rocks seemed to be much bigger than they were. The mountains were silvery illuminated and appeared gently against the mysterious blue of the sky - that blue color with moonlight, that has such an indefinable, deep tone; actually it is not a blue.”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

Source: 1850's, Vrolijk Versterven' (from Bilders' diary & letters), p. 19 - quote of Bilder's letter to his maecenas Johannes Kneppelhout, from Savoy, near Geneva, Switzerland, September 1858

Vitruvius photo
Homér photo

“As stars in the night sky glittering
round the moon's brilliance blaze in all their glory
when the air falls to a sudden, windless calm…
all the lookout peaks stand out and the jutting cliffs
and the steep ravines and down from the high heavens bursts
the boundless, bright air and all the stars shine clear
and the shepherd's heart exults.”

VIII. 551–555 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Alexander Pope's translation:
: As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Aristarchus of Samos photo

“Proposition 4. The circle which divides the dark and the bright portions in the moon is not perceptibly different from a great circle in the moon.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

p, 125
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)

A.W. Bickerton photo
John Heywood photo

“The moone is made of a greene cheese.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part II, chapter 7.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Statius photo

“As a mariner caught in a winter sea, to whom neither lazy Wain nor Moon with friendly radiance shows directions, stands clueless in mid commotion of land and sea, expecting every moment rocks sunk in treacherous shallows, or foaming cliffs with spiky tops to run upon the rearing prow.”
Ac velut hiberno deprensus navita ponto, cui neque Temo piger neque amico sidere monstrat Luna vias, medio caeli pelagique tumultu stat rationis inops, jam jamque aut saxa malignis expectat summersa vadis aut vertice acuto spumantes scopulos erectae incurrere prorae.

Source: Thebaid, Book I, Line 370

David Brewster photo

“Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

More Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian (1856), p. 207

Yoshida Shoin photo
Bai Juyi photo

“Friends on pipa, poetry and drinking all of them cast me away. When I see the snow, the moon or blossoms, I long for you deeply.”

Bai Juyi (772–846) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

「寄殷律協」[citation needed]
Unsourced

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh photo

“It seems to me that it's the best way of wasting money that I know of. I don't think investments on the moon pay a very high dividend.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

On the U.S. Apollo program, press conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil (November 1968) as quoted in The Reality of Monarchy (1970) by Andrew Duncan
1960s

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“If, then, the things achieved by nature are more excellent than those achieved by art, and if art produces nothing without making use of intelligence, nature also ought not to be considered destitute of intelligence. If at the sight of a statue or painted picture you know that art has been employed, and from the distant view of the course of a ship feel sure that it is made to move by art and intelligence, and if you understand on looking at a horologe, whether one marked out with lines, or working by means of water, that the hours are indicated by art and not by chance, with what possible consistency can you suppose that the universe which contains these same products of art, and their constructors, and all things, is destitute of forethought and intelligence? Why, if any one were to carry into Scythia or Britain the globe which our friend Posidonius has lately constructed, each one of the revolutions of which brings about the same movement in the sun and moon and five wandering stars as is brought about each day and night in the heavens, no one in those barbarous countries would doubt that that globe was the work of intelligence.”
Si igitur meliora sunt ea quae natura quam illa quae arte perfecta sunt, nec ars efficit quicquam sine ratione, ne natura quidem rationis expers est habenda. Qui igitur convenit, signum aut tabulam pictam cum aspexeris, scire adhibitam esse artem, cumque procul cursum navigii videris, non dubitare, quin id ratione atque arte moveatur, aut cum solarium vel descriptum vel ex aqua contemplere, intellegere declarari horas arte, non casu, mundum autem, qui et has ipsas artes et earum artifices et cuncta conplectatur consilii et rationis esse expertem putare. [88] Quod si in Scythiam aut in Brittanniam sphaeram aliquis tulerit hanc, quam nuper familiaris noster effecit Posidonius, cuius singulae conversiones idem efficiunt in sole et in luna et in quinque stellis errantibus, quod efficitur in caelo singulis diebus et noctibus, quis in illa barbaria dubitet, quin ea sphaera sit perfecta ratione.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book II, section 34
De Natura Deorum – On the Nature of the Gods (45 BC)

Patricia A. McKillip photo
Starhawk photo
Paul McCartney photo

“I thought the only lonely place was on the moon.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

"Jet" from Band on the Run (1974)
Lyrics, Wings

Stephen King photo
Arthur Waley photo
Woody Guthrie photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Randy Pausch photo
James Russell Lowell photo

“These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
FitzGerald strung them on an English thread.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

In a Copy of Omar Khayyam.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
FitzGerald strung them on an English thread.

Leo Tolstoy photo
Thom Yorke photo
Harry Chapin photo
Viktor Schauberger photo
William Saroyan photo
Newton Lee photo

“Like the seemingly impossible moon landing, Hollywood has repeatedly predicted the future, including self-destructing messages.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

Donald Barthelme photo
John Fante photo
Prince photo
John Constable photo

“This appearance of the Evening was… just after a very heavy rain — more rain in the night and very — [? light] wind which continued all the — day following while making – this sketch observed the Moon easing – very beautifully… [in the] due East over the — heavy clouds from which the late showers – had fallen.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Inscription: 12 September, 1821, written on the back of 'Hampstead Heath, Sun setting over Harrow,' his sketch in oil on paper; as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London. 1993), p. 221
1820s

H. Rider Haggard photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Chuck Berry photo

“Hey, the band was rockin'
Goin' around and around
Well, reelin' and a rockin'
What a crazy sound
Well, they never stopped rockin'
Till the moon went down”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Around and Around" (1957)
Song lyrics

Kent Hovind photo

“Eight simple steps of what I think caused the Flood and explain all these strange phenomena on the planet. Then we'll go into a little bit more detail and then we'll close this down.
1. Noah and the animals got safely in the ark.
2. A 300 degree below zero ice meteor came flying toward the earth and broke up in space. As it was breaking up, some of the fragments got caught and became the rings around the planets. They made the craters on the Moon, the craters on some of the planets, and what was left over came down and splattered on top of the North and South pole.
3. This super cold snow fell on the poles mostly, burying the mammoths, standing up.
4. The dump of ice on the North and South pole cracked the crust of the earth releasing the fountains of the deep. The spreading ice caused the Ice Age effects. The glacier effects that we see. It buried the mammoths. It made the earth wobble around for a few thousand years. And it made the canopy collapse, which used to protect the earth. And it broke open the fountains of the deep.
5. During the first few months of the flood, the dead animals would settle out, and dead plants, and all get buried. They would become coal, if they were plants, and oil if they're animals. And those are still found today in huge graveyards. Fossils found in graveyards. Oil found in big pockets under the ground.
6. During the last few months of the flood, the unstable plates of the earth would shift around. Some places lifted up; other places sank down. That's going to form ocean basins and mountain ranges. And the runoff would cause incredible erosion like the Grand Canyon in a couple of weeks.
7. Over the next few hundred years, the ice caps would slowly melt back retreating to their current size. The added water from the ice melt would raise the ocean level creating what's called a continental shelf. It would also absorb carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere which allows for radiation to get in which is going to shorten people's life spans. And in the days of Peleg, it finally took affect.
8. The earth still today shows the effects of this devastating flood.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

Rufus Wainwright photo

“Guess the world needs both sun
And the moon too
Sad with what I have except for you.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Sad With What I Have
Song lyrics, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010)

Julius Hare photo
David Orrell photo

“The race to the moon was never really about the moon - its utility didn't rest in samples of moon rock. It was about capitalism versus communism, right versus left.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 4, Right Versus Left, p. 116

Michael Moorcock photo
John Dyer photo

“Disparting towers
Trembling all precipitate down dash’d,
Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon.”

John Dyer (1699–1757) Welsh cleric, poet and painter

The Ruins of Rome (1740), line 40.

Jonathan Edwards photo
Fred Hoyle photo
Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“He made an instrument to know
If the moon shine at full or no.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto III, line 261
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

“There was a saying of the peasants—the rat cannot call the cat to account. But it was also true that if the moon moves but slowly, still it crosses the city.”

Andre Norton (1912–2005) American writer of science fiction and fantasy

Source: Dragon Magic (1972), Chapter 3, “Sirrush-Lau” (p. 78)

E.E. Cummings photo
Colin Blakemore photo
Bill Maher photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Ernesto Sábato photo

“A genius is someone who discovers that the stone that falls and the moon that doesn't fall represent one and the same phenomenon.”

Ernesto Sábato (1911–2011) Argentine writer, painter and physicist

Un genio es alguien que descubre que la piedra que cae y la luna que no cae representan un solo y mismo fenómeno.
Ernesto Sábato, in On Heroes and Tombs [Sobre héroes y tumbas] (1961), Ch. X
Variant translation: A genius is someone who discovers that the falling stone and the moon that falls represent one and the same phenomenon.

David Attenborough photo
Immortal Technique photo
Han-shan photo
Orson Welles photo

“Thank you, Donald, for that well-meant but rather pedestrian introduction. Regarding yourself, I quote from the third part of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Act Two, Scene One. Richard speaks, "Were thy heart as hard as steel/ As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds/ I come to pierce it, or to give thee mine." To translate into your own idiom, Donald; you're a yo-yo. Now I direct my remarks to Dean Martin, who is being honored here tonight… for reasons that completely elude me. No, I'm not being fair to Dean because - this is true - in his way Dean, and I know him very well, has the soul of a poet. I'm told that in his most famous song Dean authored a lyric which is so romantic, so touching that it will be enjoyed by generations of lovers until the end of time. Let's share it together. [Opens a songsheet for Dean's "That's Amore" and reads in a monotone] "When the moon hits your eye/ Like a big pizza-pie/ That's amore" Now, that's what I call 'touching', Dean. It has all the romanticism of a Ty-D-Bol commercial. "When the world seems to shine/ Like you've had too much wine/ That's amore" What a profound thought. It could be inscribed forever on a cocktail napkin. Hey, there's more. "Tippy-tippy-tay/ Like a gay tarantella" Like a gay tarantella? Apparently, Dean has a 'side Dean' we know nothing about. "When the stars make you drool/ Just like a pasta fazool…. Scuzza me, but you see/ Back in old Napoli/ That's amore" No, Dean; that's infermo, Italian for "sickened". Now, lyrics like that - lyrics like that ought to be issued with a warning: a song like that is hazardous to your health. Ladies and gentlemen… [motions to Dean] you are looking at the end result!”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Speech given at a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. Viewable here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKR0i-51S4.

Charles Dickens photo

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

Kapil Dev photo

“When we returned [to] India, we realised how the countrymen had celebrated the win! Everybody was over the moon. Some of them said that the August 15, 1947 came back.”

Kapil Dev (1959) Indian cricketer

Kapil Dev: 30 years on, I can still recall India World Cup victory

Max Pechstein photo

“Contented sleep releases the limbs. We await full moon. Await the dance!”

Max Pechstein (1881–1955) German artist

4 short quotes of Max Pechstein, 1918, in Aus dem Palau-Tagebuch, 'Das Kunstblatt' 2, no. 6, p. 179; as cited in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 43

Johannes Kepler photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo

“Must be a full moon,” she said.”Lawrence is turning into an asshole.”

Source: A Bridge of Years (1991), Chapter 8 (p. 143)

Marvin Gaye photo

“Rockets, moon shots
Spend it on the have nots
Money, we make it
'Fore we see it you take it
Oh, make you wanna holler
The way they do my life
Make me wanna holler.”

Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) American singer-songwriter and musician

Inner City Blues, co-written with James Nyx, Jr.
Song lyrics, What's Going On (1971)

Bob Dylan photo

“For man has invented his doom; first step was touching the moon.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), License to Kill

Bill Mollison photo
Kate Havnevik photo

“outside
It's another world
When the moon is high”

Kate Havnevik (1975) Norwegian singer-songwriter

Song lyrics

Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Carl Sagan photo
James Taylor photo
Cesare Pavese photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Cesare Pavese photo
Gerald Durrell photo

“Halfway up the slope, guarded by a group of tall, slim, cypress-trees, nestled a small strawberry-pink villa, like some exotic fruit lying in the greenery. The cypress-trees undulated gently in the breeze, as if they were busily painting the sky a still brighter blue for our arrival.
The villa was small and square, standing in its tiny garden with an air of pink-faced determination. Its shutters had been faded by the sun to a delicate creamy-green, cracked and bubbled in places. The garden, surrounded by tall fuschia hedges, had the flower beds worked in complicated geometrical patterns, marked with smooth white stones. The white cobbled paths, scarcely as wide as a rake's head, wound laboriously round beds hardly larger than a big straw hat, beds in the shape of stars, half-moons, triangles, and circles all overgrown with a shaggy tangle of flowers run wild. Roses dropped petals that seemed as big and smooth as saucers, flame-red, moon-white, glossy, and unwrinkled; marigolds like broods of shaggy suns stood watching their parent's progress through the sky. In the low growth the pansies pushed their velvety, innocent faces through the leaves, and the violets drooped sorrowfully under their heart-shaped leaves. The bougainvillaea that sprawled luxuriously over the tiny iron balcony was hung, as though for a carnival, with its lantern-shaped magenta flowers. In the darkness of the fuschia-hedge a thousand ballerina-like blooms quivered expectantly. The warm air was thick with the scent of a hundred dying flowers, and full of the gentle, soothing whisper and murmur of insects.”

My Family and Other Animals (1956)

Dick Cavett photo

“Why don't you fold it five ways and put it where the moon don't shine.”

Dick Cavett (1936) American talk show host

In response to Norman Mailer's remark: "Why don't you just read the next question on your card there?" — on The Dick Cavett Show (2 December 1971) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw

Mike Scott photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo

“Let the dog bark; the moon shall beam on.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

As quoted in Gholam R. Afkhami (2009) The life and times of the Shah, page 261
The 'dog' was a reference to Khomeini
Attributed

Conor Oberst photo

“I started to sink like the moon tends to do if you stare at it too long
Then you blink and it's gone”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

The Awful Sweetness Of Escaping Sweat
A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 (1998)

John Burroughs photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“The night folds her trembling hands over a weary world. Out of a pale blue rises the shining moon. My thoughts are flying to the stars like lonely swans.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Nacht faltet zitternde Hände über der müden Welt. Aus blassem Blau steigt leuchtend der Mond. Meine Gedanken fliegen wie einsame Schwäne in die Sterne.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Stephenie Meyer photo
Natasha Bedingfield photo

“Just like the moon, I'll step aside, and let your sun shine while I follow behind…”

Natasha Bedingfield (1981) English singer and songwriter

"Angel" from Pocketful of Sunshine (2007)

Nick Drake photo
Aristarchus of Samos photo

“Proposition 3. The circle in the moon which divides the dark and the bright portions is least when the cone comprehending both the sun and the moon has its vertex at our eye.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

p, 125
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Patrick Buchanan photo
Alan Shepard photo

“One can make the argument that the success of the Shepard flight enabled the decision to go to the moon.”

Alan Shepard (1923–1998) American astronaut

John Logsdon — reported in John Noble Wilford, The New York Times (July 23, 1998) "Alan Shepard 1923-1998 One of 7 Original Astronauts, He was First American in Space", The Plain Dealer, p. 1A.
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Tanith Lee photo
Thomas Gray photo

“Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 3
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Dafydd ap Gwilym photo

“Blue, round, miserable moon, full of magic, picture that draws like a magnet, pale-coloured, charmed jewel, made by sorcerers; swiftest of dreams, cold traitor, brother to the ice, most evil and unkind of servants, let hell consume the hateful, thin, bent-lipped mirror!”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Lleuad las gron gwmpas graen,
Llawn o hud, llun ehedfaen;
Hadlyd liw, hudol o dlws,
Hudolion a'i hadeilws;
Breuddwyd o'r modd ebrwydda',
Bradwr oer a brawd i'r ia.
Ffalstaf, gwir ddifwynaf gwas,
Fflam fo'r drych mingam meingas!
"Y Drych" (The Mirror), line 25; translation from Carl Lofmark Bards and Heroes (Felinfach: Llanerch, 1989) p. 96.