Quotes about sleeping (1939 quotes, page 15)

“There stretch'd a sleeping army. One by one,
They took their places until thousands met;
No leader's stars flash'd on before, and none
Lean'd on his sword or stagger'd with his gun --
I wonder if their feet have rested yet!”

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1836–1919) American writer

Army of Occupation (1866), a Civil War poem written at Arlington, Virginia.

Star , Sleep

“Employers will give time to eat, time to sleep; they are in terror of a time to think.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: Utopia of Usurers (1917), p. 31

Thinking , Sleep , Time

“Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, l. 161 (1807).

Love , Men , Lie , Sleep

“motherland cradle me
close my eyes
lullaby me to sleep
keep me safe
lie with me
stay beside me
don't go, don't you go”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Motherland (2001), Motherland

Lie , Sleep

“The perseverence of a rebel, I drop heavier levels
of unseen or heard, a king with words
Can't knock the hustle, but I've seen street dreams deferred
Dark spots in my mind where the scene occurred
Some say I'm too deep, but I'm in too deep to sleep”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"The 6th Sense" (Track 9)
Albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000)

Dreams , Sleep , Perseverance

“Shykh Nuruddin Mubarak Ghaznavi was the most important disciple of Shykh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi, founder of the second most important sufi silsila after the Chishtiyya, who died in Baghdad in 1235 AD. Ghaznavi had come and settled down in India where he passed away in 1234-35 AD. He served as Shykh-ul-Islam in the reign of Shamsuddin Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236), and propounded the doctrine of Din Panahi. Barani quotes the first principle of this doctrine as follows in his Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi. “The kings should protect the religion of Islam with sincere faith… And kings will not be able to perform the duty of protecting the Faith unless, for the sake of God and the Prophet’s creed, they overthrow and uproot kufr and kafiri (infidelity), shirk (setting partners to God) and the worship of idols. But if the total uprooting of idolatry is not possible owing to the firm roots of kufr and the large number of kafirs and mushriks (infidels and idolaters), the kings should at least strive to insult, disgrace, dishonour and defame the mushrik and idol-worshipping Hindus, who are the worst enemies of God and the Prophet. The symptom of the kings being the protectors of religion is this:- When they see a Hindu, their eyes grow red and they wish to bury him alive; they also desire to completely uproot the Brahmans, who are the leaders of kufr and shirk and owning to whom kufr and shirk are spread and the commandments of kufr are enforced… Owing to the fear and terror of the kings of Islam, not a single enemy of God and the Prophet can drink water that is sweet or stretch his legs on his bed and go to sleep in peace.””

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

God , Fear , Peace , Faith

“A boundless vision grows upon us; an untamed continent; vast wastes of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval sleep; river, lake, and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the domain which France conquered for Civilization. Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vestments in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, with their dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons of toil.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Introduction
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Death , Men , Mountain , Parent

“I dream of building a community of dancers in a forsaken place amidst nature. A place where nothing exists, except dance. A place where you breathe, eat, sleep, dream, talk, imagine - dance. A place where all the five senses can be refined to perfection. A place where dancers drop negative qualities such as jealousy, small-mindedness, greed and malice to embrace their colleagues as sisters and support each other in their journey towards becoming dancers of merit. A place called Nrityagram.”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

On her dance institution called Nityagram quoted in The Dream, 14 January 2014, Nritygarm Organization http://www.nrityagram.org/soul/dream/dream.htm,

Jealousy , Dreams , Imagination , Communication

“In examining any dictatorship, there are two good tests. Firstly, what is the relation between the rulers and the proletariat or common people? Are the rulers members of the proletariat, as they would have you believe? Do they even identify their interests with those of ordinary citizens? The truth seems to be that, no matter where you find them, the so-called proletarian dictatorships are actually controlled by a small elite who ordinarily lose little sleep in worrying about the rights of the common man. Secondly, have the proletariat any effective say in what the rulers do? In the proletarian dictatorships I am familiar with, ordinary people enjoy little or no control over their Government or over their own lives and futures.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 162
Publications, Mission for my Country (1961)

People , Truth , Sleep , Future

“Faith is the backbone of the social and the foundation of the commercial fabric; remove faith between man and man, and society and commerce fall to pieces. There is not a happy home on earth but stands on faith; our heads are pillowed on it, we sleep at night in its arms with greater security for the safety of our lives, peace, and prosperity than bolts and bars can give.”

Thomas Guthrie (1803–1873) British divine

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 218.

Peace , Faith , Home , Sleep

“I cannot sleep at all on a plane and I am terribly scared of sleeping pills. To accuse me of wasting money - no, I am sorry. Just think of the time I save.”

Mobutu Sésé Seko (1930–1997) President of Zaïre

Mobutu, asked by a German journalist to justify the expense of his Concorde while the nation's economy was in crisis. Meredith, p. 532

Money , Thinking , Sleep , Time

“There she encountered Sleep, the brother of Death.”

Homér Iliad

XIV. 231 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Death , Sleep

“I lay down and tried to sleep. When I closed my eyes I saw an Oriental face, the lips and nose eaten by disease. The disease spread, melting the face into an amoeboid mass in which the eyes floated, dull crustacean eyes. Slowly, a new face formed around the eyes. A series of faces, hieroglyphs, distorted and leading to the final place where the human road ends, where the human form can no longer contain the crustacean horror that has grown inside it.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)

Disease , Sleep

“Looking back on my attitude to the commonly accepted pleasures of life, I can say that I have never set much store by them. I hardly care what I eat, provided it suffices, and I care not at all for wine or spirits. When I was fourteen someone gave me a glass of beer, and I thought it so unpleasant I have never touched beer again. As for cigarettes, I dislike even being in a room where people are smoking. Sex has been of no great consequence to me, and the celibacy of desert life left me untroubled. Marriage would certainly have been a crippling handicap. I have therefore been able to lead the life of my choice with no sense of deprivation. Existence in the desert had a simplicity that I found wholly satisfying; there, everything not a necessity was an encumbrance. It was those three months in the Sahara in 1938 that taught me to appreciate things that most Europeans are able to take for granted: clean water to drink; meat to eat; a warm fire on a cold night; shelter from the rain; above all, tired surrender to sleep.”

Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) British explorer

Source: The Life Of My Choice (1987), p. 295.

Life , Marriage , People , Pleasure

“So much to do, there's plenty on the farm;
I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Saturday night I like to raise a little harm;
I'll sleep when I'm dead.”

Warren Zevon (1947–2003) American singer-songwriter

"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"
Warren Zevon (1976)

Sleep , Night , Dead

“I've never written for a fasting man;
A taste of wine is good before my verse.
But sleep is better than a little wine,
For when sleeping one thinks my songs are dreams.”
Jejunis nil scribo: meum post pocula si quis<br/>legerit, hic sapiet.<br/>Sed magis hic sapiet, si dormiet: et putet ista<br/>somnia missa sibi.

Ausonius (310–395) poet

Jejunis nil scribo: meum post pocula si quis
legerit, hic sapiet.
Sed magis hic sapiet, si dormiet: et putet ista
somnia missa sibi.
"De Bissula", line 13; translation from Harold Isbell (trans.) The Last Poets of Imperial Rome (1971) p. 48.

Dreams , Thinking , Sleep , Wine

“So it was that I gave about 1949 my 'Lecture on Nothing' at the Artists' Club on Eighth Street in New York City (started by Robert Motherwell), which predated the popular one associated with Philip Pavia, Bill de Kooning, et al. ). This 'Lecture on Nothing' was written in the same rhythmic structure I employed at the time in my musical compositions (Sonatas and Interludes, Three Dances, etc.). One of the structural divisions was the repetition, some fourteen times, of a single page in which occurred the refrain, 'If anyone is sleepy let him go to sleep.' Jeanne Reynal, I remember, stood up part way through, screamed, and then said, while I continued speaking, 'John, I dearly love you, but I can't bear another minute.' She then walked out. Later, during the question period, I gave one of six previously prepared answers regardless of the question asked. This was a reflection of my engagement in Zen.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote in: 'Silence: lectures and writings by John Cage'; publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, Foreword/ix
1960s

Love , Music , Way , Question

“My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Speech on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

Wisdom , God , Pain , Sleep

“Every moment of every day and night he was able to take the measure of his failure now. Even his family's poverty which for years he had refused to admit, began to grow familiar to him, but like the memory of a companion that one has left behind. Rose-Anna…She'd been a young girl at his side, then tired, then overwhelmed, and here she was sleeping beside him on a kind of pallet, on the floor. He could hear the whimpers from the children in their sleep.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 281-282

Children , Family , Girl , Failure

“I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

"Hawk Roosting", line 1
Lupercal (1960)

Dreams , Sleep , Perfection

“If you sleep upside down, do you dream upside down?”

Gavin Free (1988) English filmmaker

"Rooster Teeth Video Podcast #225" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHTnytDN8Us. youtube.com. July 9, 2013. Retrieved May 4, 2014.

Dreams , Sleep

“I exist without the cosmic shadow,
But it could not live bereft of me;
As the sea exists without the waves,
But they breathe not without the sea.
Dreams, wakings, states of deep turiya sleep,
Present, past, future, no more for me,
But the ever-present, all-flowing, I, I everywhere.
Consciously enjoyable,
Beyond the imagination of all expectancy,
Is this, my samadhi state.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Songs of the Soul by Paramahansa Yogananda, Quotes drawn from the poem "Samadhi"

Dreams , Imagination , Sleep , Past

“I have lived in the United States and I know the might of their industrial complex. The United States is a sleeping giant and I am afraid that our attack has awakened it.”

Chuichi Nagumo (1887–1944) Japanese admiral

Quoted in "Energy Technology XI: Applications and Economics" - Page 988 - Richard F. Hill - Science - 1975

Sleep

“Every Thing has its Vermin O Spectre of the Sleeping Dead!”

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

Frontiespiece, plate 1, line 11 (as it seen on the additional plate, Fitzwilliam Museum).
1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820)

Sleep , Dead

“[The spider of sin] sleeps quietly, unseen by the human eye. How do we then bring him into the light? The answer is the stick of God's Law. It is the only means of revealing him. If we open up the Moral Law, it will cause his ugly head to appear… Later, if you are willing, we will lure him out into the open and with the help of God, spray him with the 'gospel spray' of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

God , Law , Sleep , Light

“I, like every other stupid American, assumed the kangaroos would meet us at the airport and they would want to hug us as much as we wanted to hug them. … [In Sydney's zoo] I did find out about the koalas and how eucalyptus makes them high and why they sleep all day. They're little druggies.”

Kristen Bell (1980) American actress

On her impressions of Australia, as quoted in "US Star Disappointed no Kangaroos at airport", in The Sydney Morning Herald (15 October 2009) http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/us-star-disappointed-no-kangaroos-at-aussie-airport-20091015-gyw5.html

Stupidity , Sleep

“The sleep of a wise man is far better than the worship of an ignorant one during the night.”

Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) Seventh of the Twelve Imams and regarded by Sunnis as a renowned scholar

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 419.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

Sleep , Night

“Seize all the joy you can that robs no other. Sleep in peace, play in jolly earnest, wag well and mean it, and finally, be happy always. The more I see of dogs the less I think of men. Whoever beats dogs loves not man.”

Arsène Houssaye (1814–1896) French writer

Source: James O'Donnell Bennett (1908) When Good Fellows Get Together, p. 109

Love , Men , Peace , Dogs

“A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping,
For her husband was far on the wild-raging sea.”

Samuel Lover (1797–1868) Irish song-writer, novelist, and painter

The Angel's Whisper, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Sleep , Rage , Baby , Sea

“I started looking into nutrition and alternative medicine because I obviously didn’t want to take any drugs or anything like that. I actually found out that what I was eating could actually affect the way I felt. … You can train as hard as you want but if you’re not training the right thing, it won’t help you out. Half of that is doing your homework at home. If you work your bones off in the gym and then you go home and don’t get a good amount of sleep and don’t eat good, you won’t get good results. … One of the reasons why I love the martial arts so much is because of the discipline. It makes me do things I should be doing anyway, like eating right and not partying.”

Luke Cummo (1980) American mixed martial artist

"TUF 2 welterweight finalist Luke Cummo" https://www.mmaweekly.com/tuf-2-welterweight-finalist-luke-cummo, interview with MMAWeekly.com (November 2, 2005).

Love , Art , Way , Home

“I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink—oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course—very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief moment that they live!”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love , Life , Women , God

“The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang — home-going. So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock-ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit — waited on, watched over, noticed only by their Maker, each arriving at its own heaven-dealt destiny. All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home through death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of life’s feast — all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share heaven’s blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity. 'Our little lives are rounded with a sleep.”

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

pages 439-440
("Trees towering … into eternity" are the next-to-last lines of the documentary film " John Muir in the New World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/" (American Masters), produced, directed, and written by Catherine Tatge.)
John of the Mountains, 1938

Love , Life , Death , Law

“Why are there stars when there are no people? O God, why don't you just extinguish them? — Cool my brow, ancient night! Divine and fair as you always were — O night, what purpose do you serve? There are no lovers, no dreams. O nursemaid, dead as a sleep without dreams, you no longer hallow anyone's prayers. O mother of us all, you don't bless a single heart smitten with love. There is no love.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

Love , God , People , Dreams

“If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"The Lamp"
Love Songs (1917)

Love , God , Sleep

“Seven things has Lady Lackless
Keeps them underneath her black dress
One a ring that’s not for wearing
One a sharp word, not for swearing
Right beside her husband’s candle
There’s a door without a handle
In a box, no lids or locks
Lackless keeps her husband’s rocks
There’s a secret she’s been keeping
She’s been dreaming and not sleeping
On a road, that’s not for traveling
Lackless likes her riddle raveling.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 11, “The Binding of Iron” (pp. 85-86)

Secret , Dreams , Travel , Sleep

“I stepped inside. It was almost pitch dark, smelling of old underwear and the sleep of a sick body. A feeble light came from a crack in the window covered by a slice of sacking. Before I could stop him, Sammy had bolted the door…Vapors spilled from our mouths in the cold air. "Let her in, Sammy," I said. "What the hell."”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Hell , Sleep , Light

“Creation sleeps! 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 23.

Life , Nature , Sleep

“Her children knew she's sleeping with all these men. That just seems to me, it's the definition of "not a good mother." … Is everyone just saying here that it's okay to ostentatiously have premarital sex in front of your children? … [Diana is] an ordinary and pathetic and confessional — I've never had bulimia! I've never had an affair! I've never had a divorce! So I don't think she's better than I am.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Statement on MSNBC (19 September 1997) as quoted in "The Wit and Wisdom (NOT) of Ann Coulter" (4 September 2004) http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020205Coulter.html.
1980s-90s

Men , Children , Sex , Thinking

“The night will close the door & fasten my anchor within the veil and I shall go away to sleep.”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Letter 333
Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Andrew Bonar)

Sleep , Night

“Mortality, behold and fear!
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within this heap of stones:
Here they lie, had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to stir their hands”

Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) British dramatist

On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey http://www.englishverse.com/poems/on_the_tombs_in_westminster_abbey

Lie , Fear , Thinking , Sleep

“"No communication." Baines was sweating. "In eighteen years there hasn't been any semantic bridge between you? Does he have any contact? Signs? Codes?"
"He — ignores us. He eats here, stays with us. Sometimes he plays when we play. Or sits with us. He's gone days on end. We've never been able to find out what he's doing — or where. He sleeps in the barn — by himself."”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

The Golden Man (1954)

Communication , Sleep

“If I take a man into battle, my lord, i like to offer him a better than even chance that he'll march away with his skin intact. If I wanted to kill the buggers I'd just strangle them in their sleep. It's kinder.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 88
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

Sleep , Chance

“I was a mummy's boy; I still am. My mum still gets rid of the spiders off my walls. She comes over, picks them up and chucks them outside. There may be one in my bedroom, and I'll never sleep.”

Amir Khan (boxer) (1986) British boxer

Interview in Daily Telegraph 2 Dec 2011 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/boxing/8928423/Im-never-scared-its-in-the-blood-Amir-Khan-interview.html

Boy , Sleep

“Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams
Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book Ode to the West Wind

St. III
Ode to the West Wind (1819)

Dreams , Flowers , Sense , Sleep

“Do not despair
For Johnny-head-in-air;
He sleeps as sound
As Johnny underground.”

John Pudney (1909–1977) British writer

For Johnny.

Sleep , Despair

“Sleep can also assist with problem resolution. You would be amazed to know that many major discoveries in human history have resulted from revelations that occur upon arising. People first reflect on a particular problem before resting. During sleep, they concentrate on the problem on an unconscious level. When they awaken, they have the resolution to the conflict or problem.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 24

People , History , Problem , Sleep

“Neurotics would like to sleep all the time, and to be awakened only when there is good news.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis

Sleep , Time

“We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle. But if a man sleeps soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

January 6, 1842
Journals (1838-1859)

Religion , Imagination , Literature , Sleep

“Every day in this world has its work; and every day as it rises out of eternity keeps putting to each of us this question afresh, "What will you do before to-day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again? " And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing — Time? That men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious and irreparable hour in the garden of Gethsemane — they go to sleep.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 120.

Life , Men , World , Question

“Sleep was like a phantom I was too tired to chase.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 96
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Sleep

“In waking, eating, working, dreaming, sleeping,
Serving, meditating, chanting, divinely loving,
My soul constantly hums, unheard by any;
God, God, God!
”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

From Yogananda's poem ""God, God, God!"", Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 37
Miscellaneous Quotes

Love , God , Dreams , Soul

“It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a free country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi?… I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi.”

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) American civil rights activist (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)

As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 8, by Hay Mills (1993). Said on September 13, 1965, in a hearing before the United States House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Elections.

Home , Sleep , Chance , Parting

“Did you sleep well last night?” asked Glorian.
“Yes, I suppose,” said Dore, “although I was trouble by a strange dream.”
“Oh? Perhaps it was some sort of omen. Tell me of it.”
“Certainly,” said Dore. “I dreamed of a domino.”
“Just one?”
“Yes, just the one. All night. No people or sounds in the dream, just the domino. The five-three.”
“Wonderful!” cried Glorian. “The five-three is a lucky little devil. It presages victory after hardships. It confirms your inner ambition, but counsels you to avoid extremes, to temper pleasure with practicality. Advances in music, art, and drama are indicated. Rely on good manners and good taste. The five-three is a domino of hope and good news.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

“Are you making that up?” said Dore suspiciously.
Source: What Entropy Means to Me (1972), Chapter 6 “A Perilous Scheme” (p. 111).

People , Pleasure , Dreams , Hope

“When the peace of autumn has become poetic instead of being taken for granted, the last day of the plover become a matter of personal regret, the pony become associated with the history of art and mythology, the evening ice-film on the farm stream become reminiscent of crystal, and the smoke from the chimney become a message to us from those who discovered fire—then the time has come to say goodbye... I had long begun to count the days until I could once again leave home, where I felt an alien, and go out into the alien world, where I was at home. But still I paused for a while over my thoughts of departure, and listened to the silence that had robbed the gods of sleep; and dusk sank slowly over the ponies.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

God , World , Peace , Art

“The stars you see at night are the unblinking eyes of sleeping elephants, who sleep with one eye open to best keep watch over us.”

Gregory Colbert (1960) Canadian photographer

Ashes and Snow : A Novel in Letters (2005) Flying Elephants Press

Star , Sleep , Night

“I'm born,
I'm alive,
I breathe,
In a moment or two I realize,
That the sphere upon which I reside
Is asleep on its feet,
Should I go back to sleep?”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. (1997)

Sleep

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You’ve crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 5 (p. 101)

Pain , Dreams , Sleep , Time

“India is calling. Blood is calling to blood. Get up, we have no time to lose. Take up your arms! we shall carve our way through the enemy's ranks, or if God wills, we shall die a martyr's death. And in our last sleep we shall kiss the road that will bring our Army to Delhi. The road to Delhi is the road to Freedom. Chalo Delhi (March to Delhi).”

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) Indian nationalist leader and politician

As quoted in India Calling (1946) by himself and R. I. Paul, p. 5

Death , God , Way , Kiss

“John Major: What I don't understand, Michael, is why such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything.
Michael Brunson: You've said it, you said precisely that.
Major: I suppose Gus will tell me off for saying that, won't you Gus?
Brunson: No, no, no … it's a fair point. The trouble is that people are not perceiving you as winning.
Major: Oh, I know … why not? Because…
Brunson: Because rotten sods like me, I suppose, don't get the message clear [laughs].
Major: No, no, no. I wasn't going to say that - well partly that, yes, partly because of S-H-one-Ts like you, yes, that's perfectly right. But also because those people who are opposing our European policy have said the way to oppose the Government on the European policy is to attack me personally. The Labour Party started before the last election. It has been picked up and it is just one of these fashionable things that slips into the Parliamentary system and it is an easy way to proceed.
Brunson: But I mean you … has been overshadowed … my point is there, not just the fact that you have been overshadowed by Maastricht and people don't…
Major: The real problem is this…
Brunson: But you've also had all the other problems on top - the Mellors, the Mates … and it's like a blanket - you use the phrase 'masking tape' but I mean that's it, isn't it?
Major: Even, even, even, as an ex-whip I can't stop people sleeping with other people if they ought not, and various things like that. But the real problem is…
Brunson: I've heard other people in the Cabinet say 'Why the hell didn't he get rid of Mates on Day One?' Mates was a fly, you could have swatted him away.
Major: Yeah, well, they did not say that at the time, I have to tell you. And I can tell you what they would have said if I had. They'd have said 'This man was being set up. He was trying to do his job for his constituent. He had done nothing improper, as the Cabinet Secretary told me. It was an act of gross injustice to have got rid of him'. Nobody knew what I knew at the time. But the real problem is that one has a tiny majority. Don't overlook that. I could have all these clever and decisive things that people wanted me to do and I would have split the Conservative Party into smithereens. And you would have said, Aren't you a ham-fisted leader? You've broken up the Conservative Party.
Brunson: No, well would you? If people come along and…
Major: Most people in the Cabinet, if you ask them sensibly, would tell you that, yes. Don't underestimate the bitterness of European policy until it is settled - It is settled now.
Brunson: Three of them - perhaps we had better not mention open names in this room - perhaps the three of them would have - if you'd done certain things, they would have come along and said, 'Prime Minister, we resign'. So you say 'Fine, you resign'.
Major: We all know which three that is. Now think that through. Think it through from my perspective. You are Prime Minister. You have got a majority of 18. You have got a party still harking back to a golden age that never was but is now invented. And you have three rightwing members of the Cabinet actually resigned. What happens in the parliamentary party?
Brunson: They create a lot of fuss but you have probably got three damn good ministers in the Cabinet to replace them.
Major: Oh, I can bring in other people into the Cabinet, that is right, but where do you think most of this poison has come from? It is coming from the dispossessed and the never-possessed. You and I can both think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble. Would you like three more of the bastards out there? What's the Lyndon Johnson, er, maxim?
Brunson: If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.
Major: No, that's not what I had in mind, though it's pretty good.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Andrew Culf, "What the `wimp' really said to the S-H-one-T", The Guardian, 26 July 1993.
'Off-the-record' exchange with ITN reporter Michael Brunson following videotaped interview, 23 July 1993. Neither Major nor Brunson realised their microphones were still live and being recorded by BBC staff preparing for a subsequent interview; the tape was swiftly leaked to the Daily Mirror.

People , Age , Way , Fashion

“Forget not bees in winter, though they sleep.”

Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) English writer and gardener

"Bee-Master", p. 40
The Land (1926)

Sleep , Bee , Winter , Forgetting

“As when a tigress hears the noise of the hunters, she bristles into her stripes and shakes off the sloth of sleep; athirst for battle she loosens her jaws and flexes her claws, then rushes upon the troop and carries in her mouth a breathing man, food for her bloody young.”
Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure tigris horruit in maculas somnosque excussit inertes, bella cupit laxatque genas et temperat ungues, mox ruit in turmas natisque alimenta cruentis spirantem fert ore virum.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book II, Line 128

Food , Sleep

“Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples http://www.readprint.com/work-1373/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley (1818), st. 5

Life , Death , Lie , Feeling

“Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to,
The Chinese wouldn't dare to,
The Hindus and Argentines
Sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen
Detest a
Siesta.”

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

Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1930)

Dogs , Sleep , Sun , Madness

“Now, blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 68.

Pleasure , World , Fools , Drink

“Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove
The pangs of guilty power and hapless love!
Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more;
Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Epitaph on Claudius Philips, the Musician
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love , Peace , Angels , Sleep

“I came no nearer sleep than I came to the moon.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Jewels of Aptor

Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter III (p. 29)

Sleep

“We had a good day,” Tig said, slapping me on the back.
“Got a whole mess of ’em, didn’t we? Two fifty-eight confirmed.”
“Forget the numbers. You woke up this morning, and you’re going to sleep tonight. In my book, that’s a good day.”

Eric Garcia (1972) An amazing author who has written several wonderful books!

In recent months, I have adopted Tig’s philosophy.
Source: The Repossession Mambo (2009), Chapter 8 (p. 136)

Books , Sleep , Forgetting

“I still dream of Orgonon.
I wake up crying.
You're making rain,
And you're just in reach,
When you and sleep escape me.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Hounds of Love (1985)

Dreams , Sleep , Cry

“An irresistible sleep fell deeply on his eyes, the sweetest,
soundest oblivion, still as the sleep of death itself…”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIII. 79–80 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Death , Sleep

“For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not for him in the night any so hideous phantasmagoria as will not become, in the clarity of the next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, and he sees nothing dreadful after all. "Why not?" is the sun’s bright message to him, and "Why not indeed?"”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

his answer.”
Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IV

Sleep , Memory , Sun , Night

“The Dead! the Dead! and sleep they here,
The lost of other years —
The Dead! the Dead! can they be here,
Where nought of Death appears?”

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

(7th October 1826) The Tumuli
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

Death , Sleep , Appearance , Dead

“If those who despise us stone us as prophets, they must listen to us as prophets. If they curse us as sorcerers, they must learn to curse from us, as sorcerers.
Let us enlighten the young, and let us be condemned for corrupting the young, like Socrates. Let us awaken the old before they sleep forever, though they must read us in secret like the Kabbalah. […] The difficulties and successes of our books and magazines, and the rejection and misinterpretation of the films made from our ideas—are the flounderings of the human mind upon the Paleozoic shore. We are the sand in its gills; let's not lose our grit.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Guest of Honor speech at Aussiecon Two (August 1985), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

Secret , Books , Idea , Sleep

“His shroud was damp, his face was white:
He said,—"I cannot sleep,
Your tears have made my shroud so wet;
Oh, mother, do not weep!"
Oh, love is strong!—the mother's heart
Was filled with tender fears;
Oh, love is strong!—and for her child
Her grief restrained its tears.”

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

The Little Shroud from The London Literary Gazette (28th April 1832)
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Love , Fear , Tear , Sleep

“We need each other / We believe in one another / And I know we're gonna uncover / What's sleeping in our souls”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Acquiesce, released 24 April 1995
B-sides released by Oasis

Soul , Sleep

“And I will always do my duty no matter what the price
I've counted up the cost, I know the sacrifice.
Oh, and I don't want to die for you,
But if dyin's asked of me,
I'll bear that cross with honor,
'Cause freedom don't come free.I'm an American soldier, an American
Beside my brothers and my sisters I will proudly take a stand
When Liberty's in jeopardy, I will always do what's right
I'm out here on the front line
Sleep in peace tonight
American soldier, I'm an American soldier.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

American Soldier.
Song lyrics, Shock'n Y'all (2003)

Peace , Sister , Sleep , Freedom

“The Christian insistence on freedom — the monastic vows are voluntary sacrifices of a select few — derives from the Christian concept that man must be free in order to act morally. (A sleeping, a chained and clubbed, a drugged person can neither be sinful nor virtuous.) Yet, the free world which is practically synonymous with the world of free enterprise alone provides a climate, a way of life compatible with the dignity of man who makes free decisions, enjoys privileges, assumes responsiblilties, and develops his talents as he sees fit. He is truly the steward of his family. He can buy, sell, save, invest, gamble, plan the future, build, retrench, acquire capital, make donations, take risks. In other words, he can be the master of his economic fate and act as a man instead of a sheep in a herd under a shepherd and his dogs. No doubt, free enterprise is a harsh system; it demands real men. But socialism, which appeals to envious people craving for security and afraid to decide for themselves, impairs human dignity and crushes man utterly.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

The Roots of Anticapitalism

Life , Men , Fate , People

“Well, it's the only picture I ever wanted to own ['Three Bathers' of Cézanne ]. It's a Cézanne and the joy of my life. I saw it about a year ago in an exhibition and I was stunned by it. I didn’t sleep for two or three nights trying to decide whether to... To me it is marvelous. Monumental... It's not perfect, it’s a sketch. But then I don't like absolute perfection. I believe one should make a struggle towards something one can't do rather than do the thing that comes easily. Perhaps another reason is why I fell for it is that the type of woman he portrays is the same kind as I like. Each of the figures I could turn in into a piece of sculpture, very simple. Not young girls but that wide, broad, mature woman. Matronly.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

1955 - 1970

Life , Girl , Sleep , Joy

“When I am tired, it is easy to believe that my exhaustion is the reason I am depressed and lonely and uninspired. But when I am well-rested [sic], I can realize that these negative feelings are not a result of too little sleep. They are a result of my being a miserable, hopeless, misanthropic wretch.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

September 3
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Feeling , Sleep

“If you don't sleep you get run down. Sloths never get a flu, cos its good innit thats when your body's replemishing”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

NME Radio Show
On Biology

Sleep

“Politics is not my end-all and be-all. I don't eat politics for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And when I sleep, I don't dream politics.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Tita Valderama, "The Phenomenon of Chiz Escudero", Newsbreak, 2007 July-September, p. 21.
2007

Dreams , Sleep

“A deep sleep took hold upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XXIII. 343–344 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Sleep

“I'm wild again, beguiled again
A simpering, whimpering child again;
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I.

Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep
When love came and told me, I shouldn't sleep;
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I.
I'm wild again! Beguiled again!
A simpering, whimpering child again,
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.”

Lorenz Hart (1895–1943) lyricist

Bewitched http://www.thepeaches.com/music/composers/rodgershart/Bewitched.htm (1940)

Love , Sleep

“Sleep is a death; oh, make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed.”

Thomas Browne book Religio Medici

Section 12
Religio Medici (1643), Part II

Death , Sleep

“I heard one cry in the night, and I heard one laugh afterwards. If I cannot forget that, I shall not be able to sleep again.”

M. R. James (1862–1936) British writer

"Count Magnus", from Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904); The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James (London: Edward Arnold, 1947) p. 111.

Sleep , Cry , Night , Forgetting

“I have used this [vegan] diet since 2008. I first tried it when I was preparing for my challenge of WBC super lightweight champion Junior Wittier -- my first world title fight -- and after seeing the results it gave me I have tried to stay as loyal to it as possible. It helps keep my body clean and it provides me with a tremendous amount of energy due to my body spending less energy breaking down foods like meats. This is a big key factor in my fitness. … The energy is always there. I feel so alive. My senses and reflexes are so acute. … With a vegan diet you always have energy, so much that sometimes I have trouble sleeping at night. You feel light. You don't feel bulky or heavy. This would benefit any athlete in any sport.”

Timothy Bradley (1983) American boxer

"Timothy Bradley Explains His Vegan Diet, The Benefits", in BoxingScene.com (30 September 2013) http://www.boxingscene.com/timothy-bradley-explains-his-vegan-diet-benefits--70134

World , Food , Feeling , Sense