Quotes

Quotes about Night


These (literary) studies are the food of youth, and consolation of age; they adorn prosperity, and are the comfort and refuge of adversity; they are pleasant at home, and are no incumbrance abroad; they accompany us at night, in our travels, and in our rural retreats. [Lat., Haec studia adolecentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis solatium et perfugium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.

Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

In lang, lang days o' simmer, When the clear and cloudless sky Refuses ae weep drap o' rain To Nature parched and dry, The genial night, wi' balmy breath, Gars verdue, spring anew, An' ilka blade o' grass Keps its ain drap o' dew.

James Ballantine

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

Unattributed Bible

After a day of cloud and wind and rain Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again, And touching all the darksome woods with light, Smiles on the fields until they laugh and sing, Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring, Drops down into the night.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Methought little space 'tween those hills intervened, But nearer,--more lofty,--more shaggy they seemed. The clouds o'er their summits they calmly did rest, And hung on the ether's invisible breast; Than the vapours of earth they seemed purer, more bright,-- Oh! could they be clouds? 'Twas the necklace of night.

Bayard Ruskin

When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks; When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand; When the sun sets, who doth not look for night? Untimely storms makes men expect a dearth.

William Shakespeare

Quoth Sidrophel, If you suppose, Sir Knight, that I am one of those, I might suspect, and take th' alarm, You bus'ness is but to inform; But if it be, 'tis ne'er the near, You have a wrong sow by the ear.

Samuel Butler (1)

All is not well. I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come! Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

William Shakespeare

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.

William Shakespeare

No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears, No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's wars. Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn, Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn, Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.

Erasmus Darwin

Let never day nor night unhallowed pass But still remember what the Lord hath done.

William Shakespeare

It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work—the night watchman.

Tallulah Bankhead

The dead of midnight is the noon of thought.

Anna Letitia Barbauld

Backward, turn backward, then time in your flight; Make me a child again just for tonight. Mother, come back from the echoeless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yore.

A.M.W. Ball

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Henri Louis Bible

You to the left and I to the right, For the ways of men must sever-- And it may be for a day and a night, And it well may be forever. But whether we meet or whether we part, (For our ways are past our knowing) A pledge from the heart to its fellow heart, On the ways we all are going! Here's luck! For we know not where we are going.

Richard Hovey

A health to the nut-brown lass, With the hazel eyes: let it pass. . . . . As much to the lively grey 'Tis as good i' th' night as day: . . . . She's a savour to the glass, And excuse to make it pass.

Sir John Suckling

First pledge our Queen this solemn night, Then drink to England, every guest; That man's the best Cosmopolite Who knows his native country best.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

Some say "to-morrow" never comes, A saying oft thought right; But if to-morrow never came, No end were of "to-night." The fact is this, time flies so fast, That e'er we've time to say "To-morrow's come," presto! behold! "To-morrow" proves "To-day."

Unattributed Author

There is a budding morrow in midnight.

John Keats

There's a fount about to stream, There's a light about to beam, There's a warmth about to glow, There's a flower about to blow; There's a midnight blackness changing Into gray; Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way.

Charles Mackay

He travels safest in the dark night who travels lightest.

Hernando Cortez

O that a soldier so glorious, ever victorious in fight, Passed from a daylight of honor into the terrible night; Fell as the mighty archangel, ere the earth glowed in space, fell-- Fell from the patriot's heaven down to the loyalist's hell!

Thomas Dunn English

The place is all awave with trees, Limes, myrtles, purple-beaded, Acacias having drunk the lees Of the night-dew, fain headed, And wan, grey olive-woods, which seem The fittest foliage for a dream.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it falls and die that night-- It was the plant and flower of Light.

Ben Jonson

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