Quotes about noon

A collection of quotes on the topic of noon, day, morning, night.

Quotes about noon

Babur photo
Bashō Matsuo photo

“Many solemn nights
Blond moon, we stand and marvel…
Sleeping our noons away”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Source: Japanese Haiku

Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“Swords flashed like lightning amid the blackness of clouds, and fountains of blood flowed like the fall of setting stars. The friends of God defeated their obstinate opponents, and quickly put them to a complete rout. Noon had not arrived when the Musulmans had wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of Allah, killing 15,000 of them, spreading them like a carpet over the ground, and making them food for beasts and birds of prey… The enemy of God, Jaipal, and his children and grandchildren,… were taken prisoners, and being strongly bound with ropes, were carried before the Sultan, like as evildoers, on whose faces the fumes of infidelity are evident, who are covered with the vapours of misfortune, will be bound and carried to Hell. Some had their arms forcibly tied behind their backs, some were seized by the cheek, some were driven by blows on the neck. The necklace was taken off the neck of Jaipal, - composed of large pearls and shining gems and rubies set in gold, of which the value was two hundred thousand dinars; and twice that value was obtained from necks of those of his relatives who were taken prisoners, or slain, and had become the food of the mouths of hyenas and vultures. Allah also bestowed upon his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and all calculation, including five hundred thousand slaves, beautiful men and women. The Sultan returned with his followers to his camp, having plundered immensely, by Allah's aid, having obtained the victory, and thankful to Allah… This splendid and celebrated action took place on Thursday, the 8th of Muharram, 392 H., 27th November, 1001 AD.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the defeat of Jaipal. Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 27 Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

W.B. Yeats photo

“There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Source: Selected Poetry

Anna Laetitia Barbauld photo

“This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.”

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) English author

A Summer's Evening Meditation.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

James Howell photo

“He that hath once got the fame of an early riser, may sleep till noon.”

James Howell (1594–1666) Anglo-Welsh historian and writer

Source: [Howell, James, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, https://books.google.com/books?id=v79CAAAAcAAJ&q=%22till%20noon%22, Google Books, 1655 Edition, 20 September 2016]

Paul Valéry photo

“This quiet roof, where dove-sails saunter by,
Between the pines, the tombs, throbs visibly.
Impartial noon patterns the sea in flame —
That sea forever starting and re-starting.
When thought has had its hour, oh how rewarding
Are the long vistas of celestial calm!”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Ce toit tranquille, où marchent des colombes,
Entre les pins palpite, entre les tombes;
Midi le juste y compose de feux
La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée
O récompense après une pensée
Qu'un long regard sur le calme des dieux!
Le Cimetière Marin · Online original and translation as "The Graveyard By The Sea" by C. Day Lewis http://unix.cc.wmich.edu/%7Ecooneys/poems/fr/valery.daylewis.html
Variant translations:
The sea, the ever renewing sea!
Charmes ou poèmes (1922)

Ernest Hemingway photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Eric Hoffer photo
Tennessee Williams photo

“Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

"I am widely regarded as the ghost of a writer," (1977), from New Selected Essays: Where I Live, ed. John S. Bak and John Lahr (New Directions Publishing, 2009)

William Wordsworth photo

“Another morn
Risen on mid-noon.”

Bk. VI, l. 197.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

Lewis Carroll photo
Geoffrey Chaucer photo

“And therfore, at the kynges court, my brother,
Ech man for hymself, ther is noon other.”

The Knight's Tale, l. 1181-1182
The Canterbury Tales

Marcin Malek photo
Gilbert O'Sullivan photo

“Say it is. Say it isn't.
Say it's someone else instead.
Say it's good when you don't like fishing.
You just knock it on the head.
You just knock it on the head.
Say goodbye. Say good morning.
Say good evening and good noon.
Say "Hello, tell me how you're feeling."”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Very well thanks and how are you?"
"Say Goodbye" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Say Goodbye" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCLuE28J-WU (song on YouTube)

William Blake photo

“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 41

Jean Cocteau photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Jeffrey Eugenides photo
Robert Burns photo
L. Frank Baum photo
David Lynch photo

“In a Town like Twin Peaks noone is innocent”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
Richelle Mead photo
Ray Bradbury photo

“Summer quiet thoughts on summer quiet noons.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Now and Forever

Suzanne Collins photo
James Patterson photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Frank McCourt photo
Sylvia Plath photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Patti Smith photo
Alice Hoffman photo

“Successful women don't sleep until noon.”

Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933) British author

Source: Being Elizabeth

Radhanath Swami photo

“Lying down to sleep on the earthen riverbank, I thought, Vrindavan is attracting my heart like no other place. What is happening to me? Please reveal Your divine will. With this prayer, I drifted off to sleep.
Before dawn, I awoke to the ringing of temple bells, signaling that it was time to begin my journey to Hardwar. But my body lay there like a corpse. Gasping in pain, I couldn’t move. A blazing fever consumed me from within, and under the spell of unbearable nausea, my stomach churned. Like a hostage, I lay on that riverbank. As the sun rose, celebrating a new day, I felt my life force sinking. Death that morning would have been a welcome relief. Hours passed.
At noon, I still lay there. This fever will surely kill me, I thought.
Just when I felt it couldn’t get any worse, I saw in the overcast sky something that chilled my heart. Vultures circled above, their keen sights focused on me. It seemed the fever was cooking me for their lunch, and they were just waiting until I was well done. They hovered lower and lower. One swooped to the ground, a huge black and white bird with a long, curving neck and sloping beak. It stared, sizing up my condition, then jabbed its pointed beak into my ribcage. My body recoiled, my mind screamed, and my eyes stared back at my assailant, seeking pity. The vulture flapped its gigantic wings and rejoined its fellow predators circling above. On the damp soil, I gazed up at the birds as they soared in impatient circles. Suddenly, my vision blurred and I momentarily blacked out. When I came to, I felt I was burning alive from inside out. Perspiring, trembling, and gagging, I gave up all hope.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching. A local farmer herding his cows noticed me and took pity. Pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, he looked skyward toward the vultures and, understanding my predicament, lifted me onto a bullock cart. As we jostled along the muddy paths, the vultures followed overhead. The farmer entrusted me to a charitable hospital where the attendants placed me in the free ward. Eight beds lined each side of the room. The impoverished and sadhu patients alike occupied all sixteen beds. For hours, I lay unattended in a bed near the entrance. Finally that evening the doctor came and, after performing a series of tests, concluded that I was suffering from severe typhoid fever and dehydration. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “You will likely die, but we will try to save your life.””

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

Republished on The Journey Home website.
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Wallace Stevens photo
Garry Kasparov photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Emily Dickinson photo
Walter Scott photo

“He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes
May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums;
For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,
Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.”

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 17, One of the verses of the ballad "The Barefooted Friar", sung by Friar Tuck to the Black Knight.

Erik Satie photo
Thomas Hood photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“2788. If you sleep till Noon, you have no right to complain that the Days are short.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Garrison Keillor photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Shi Nai'an photo

“A man should not marry after thirty years of age; should not enter the government service after the age of forty; should not have any more children after the age of fifty; and should not travel after the age of sixty. This is because the proper time for those things has passed. At sunrise the country is bright and fresh, and you dress, wash, and eat your breakfast, but before long it is noon. Then you realize how quickly time passes. I am always surprised when people talk about other people's ages, because what is a lifetime but a small part of much greater period? Why talk about insects when the whole world is before you? How can you count time by years? All that is clear is that time passes, and all the time there is a continual change going on. Some change has taken place ever since I began to write this. This continual change and decay fills me with sadness.”

Shi Nai'an (1296–1372) Chinese writer

Variant translation by Lin Yutang: "A man should not marry after thirty if he is not already married, and should not enter the government service if he is not already in the service. At fifty, he should not start to raise a family, and at sixty should not travel abroad. This is because there is a time for everything; done out of season and time, there may be more disadvantages than advantages. One wakes up at dawn completely refreshed, washes his face and puts on the headdress, has his breakfast; chews willow branches [for brightening his teeth], and attends to various things. Before he knows it he asks is it noon, and is told it is long past noon. As the morning goes, so goes the afternoon, and as one day passes, so pass the 36,000 days of one's life. If one is going to be upset by this thought, how can one ever enjoy life? I often wonder at a statement that such and such a person is so many years old. By this one means an accumulation of years. But where have the years accumulated? Can one lay hold of them and count them? This shows that the me of the past has long vanished. Moreover, when I have completed this sentence, the preceding sentence has already vanished. That is the tragedy." (The Importance of Understanding, 1960; pp. 83–84)
Preface to Water Margin

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Luís de Camões photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Hans Christian Andersen photo

“Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise 3d EXTRA on everything”

Adrian Henri (1932–2000) British poet

"Tonight at Noon", from The Mersey Sound (1967).

John Muir photo

“Cloudy all day. Showery on mtns. to eastward at noon. Fine thunderstorm evening, with grand display of zigzag intensely vivid & very near with keen cracks [and] grand trailing rain … Visited Elk ranch. About sixty old & young. Old bulls carry horns in noble style & grand airs.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

journal entry, Island Park, Idaho (26 August 1913) — the last field entry http://digitalcollections.pacific.edu/cdm/ref/collection/muirjournals/id/3843/show/3839 in Muir's last field journal
1910s

John Milton photo
Max Beckmann photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“4749. The Sluggard makes his Night till Noon.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Thomas Wolfe photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo

“Any lawyer who says there's no such thing as rape should be hauled out to a public place by three large perverts and buggered at high noon, with all of his clients watching.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1960s, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966)

“A true community consists of individuals - not mere species members, not couples - respecting each others individuality and privacy while at the same time interacting with each other mentally and emotionally - free spirits in free relation to each other - and co-operating with each other to achieve common ends. Traditionalists say the basic unit of "society" is the family; "hippies" say the tribe; noone says the individual.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 7 (hyphens (not en- or em-dashes) so in original; "others" so in original, probably intended as "other's"; line break across "inter-"/"acting"; "noone" so in original, probably intended as "no one").

Lesslie Newbigin photo
Garth Nix photo

“Noon sits at the Master's right hand, Dawn at his left. Dusk stands behind, in the shadows. Yet sometimes it is easier to see the light when you stand partly in the darkness.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Mister Monday (2003), p. 241.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Mary Wollstonecraft photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Isaac Watts photo

“A flower may fade before 'tis noon,
And I this day may lose my breath.”

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

Song 13: "The Danger of Delay".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place
(Portentous-sight!) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing an obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringèd lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,
Cries out, "Where is it?"”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

" Fears in Solitude http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Fears_in_Solitude.html", l. 81 (1798)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Will Eisner photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Mark Hopkins (educator) photo

“The movement has indeed been slow, and not such as man would have expected; but it has been analogous to the great movements of God in His providence and in His works. So, if we may credit the geologists, has this earth reached its present state. So have moved on the great empires. So retribution follows crime. So rise the tides. So grows the tree with long intervals of repose and apparent death. So comes on the spring, with battling elements and frequent reverses, with snowbanks and violets, and, if we had no experience, we might be doubtful what the end would be. But we know that back of all this, beyond these fluctuations, away in the serene heavens, the sun is moving steadily on; that these very agitations of the elements and seeming reverses, are not only the sign, but the result of his approach, and that the full warmth and radiance of the summer noontide are sure to come. So, O Divine Redeemer, Sun of Righteousness, come Thou! So will He come. It may be through clouds and darkness and tempest; but the heaven where He is, is serene; He is "traveling in the greatness of His strength; "and as surely as the throne of God abides, we know He shall yet reach the height and splendor of the highest noon, and that the light of millennial glory shall yet flood the earth.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 418.

Prince photo
Dante Gabriel Rossetti photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Daniel Tosh photo
Tanith Lee photo

“The moon walks east of midnight,
The sun walks west of noon.
And though I love you, sweetheart,
I will not sing your tune.”

Source: East of Midnight (1977), Chapter 2, “Full Moon” (p. 24; often repeated)

Charles Krauthammer photo

“There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

International Herald Tribune (31 October 1990), as cited in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), edited by Robert Andrews, p. 711
1990s, 1990

John Keats photo
Jane Roberts photo
Robert Herrick photo
Theodor Mommsen photo

“We have reached the end of the Roman republic. We have seen it rule for five hundred years in Italy and in the countries on the Mediterranean; we have seen it brought to rum in politics and morals, religion and literature, not through outward violence but through inward decay, and thereby making room for the new monarchy of Caesar. There was in the world, as Caesar found it, much of the noble heritage of past centuries and an infinite abundance of pomp and glory, but little spirit, still less taste, and least of all true delight in life. It was indeed an old world; and even the richly-gifted patriotism of Caesar [b] could not make it young again. The dawn does not return till after the night has fully set in and run its course. But yet with him there came to the sorely harassed peoples on the Mediterranean a tolerable evening after the sultry noon; and when at length after a long historical night a new day dawned once more for the peoples, and fresh nations in free self-movement commenced their race towards new and higher goals, there were found among them not a few, in which the seed sown by Caesar had sprung up, and which were and are indebted to him for their national individuality.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

/b
Vol. 4, Pt. 2, Translated by W.P. Dickson.
Last paragraph of the last volume
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Francis Parkman photo
Noel Coward photo

“In Rangoon
The heat of noon
Is just what the natives shun,
They put their Scotch
Or Rye down
And lie down.”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1930)

Jean Paul Sartre photo
Camille Pissarro photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Charles Burney photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me, 'It may well be a blessing in disguise.' I replied, 'At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Post-war years (1945–1955)
Source: On the (July 26, 1945) landslide electoral defeat that turned him out of office near the end of WWII, in The Second World War, Volume VI : Triumph and Tragedy (1953), Chapter 40 (The End of My Account), p. 583.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“I have devoted exhaustive study to the Protocols of Zion. In the past objection was always made that they were not suited to present day propaganda. In reading them now I find that we can use them very well. The Protocols of Zion are as modern today as they were when published the first time! At noon I mentioned this to the Führer. He believed the protocols to be absolutely genuine!”

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

As quoted in The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by Will Eisner, (10/2/2005), p.110; and in Survivors Victims and Perpetrators:, Essays on the Nazi Holocaust https://books.google.com/books/about/Survivors_Victims_and_Perpetrators.html?id=Hyg98sfH3CAC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false by Joel E. Dimsdale, p.311.
Diary excerpts

W. H. Auden photo

“You can't sleep until noon with the proper élan unless you have some legitimate reason for staying up until three”

parties don't count
"Introduction"
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1957)

Plutarch photo
John Donne photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Wallace Stevens photo

“The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Journal entry (20 April 1920); as published in Souvenirs and Prophecies: the Young Wallace Stevens (1977) edited by Holly Stevens, Ch. 6