quotations about sleep
But Sleep is kindly, even in his tricks; and the poets have treated him with proper reverence. According to the ancient mythologists, he had even one of the Graces to wife.
LEIGH HUNT
The Indicator, January 12, 1820
What a blessing man acknowledges in sleep, whose soft oblivion makes an island of every day, and breaks the hold of continuous care; that cools the hot brain, and bathes the weary eye-lids, and lets the buffeted and foundering heart cast anchor every night in some harbor of happy dreams. He feels the beneficence of that law which makes even misery halt, and besieging fortune strike its tents, and in the great democracy of nature levels the children of men in common helplessness and common need; finding no conditions so wretched, no spot so bleak that even the most desperate cannot recline nearer to the bosom of the common mother, and forget for a little while their sorrow and their shame.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Holy and blest
Is the calm of thy rest,
For thy chamber of sleep
Is dark and deep.
HENRY ALFORD
"A Remembrance"
You are now in a deep sleep
(In-store promises)
Endless possibilities
A life of ease
A life cocooned in a routine of food
(Stimulus and response!)
Softness is a thing called comfort
(It doesn't cost much to keep in touch)
We never forget you have a choice
Possibilities in store
A taste of paradise
Success on a plate for you
Endless promises
THIS HEAT
"Sleep"
How lovely is the heaven of this night,
How deadly still its earth. The forest brute
Has crept into his cave, and laid himself
Where sleep has made him harmless like the lamb:
The horrid snake, his venom now forgot,
Is still and innocent as the honied flower
Under his head:--and man, in whom are met
Leopard and snake--and all the gentleness
And beauty of the young lamb and the bud,
Has let his ghost out, put his thoughts aside
And lent his senses unto death himself;
Whereby the King and beggar all lie down
On straw or purple-tissue, are but bones
And air, and blood, equal to one another
And to the unborn and buried: so we go
Placing ourselves among the unconceived
And the old ghosts, wantonly, smilingly,
For sleep is fair and warm.
THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES
"Lines"
Sleep is a nightly reminder that we are beholden to our bodies, that we are our bodies, and that one day we will die. It puts us at the wrong end of the mind-body dualism that has, from Plato through Descartes, raised mind over body. It's a blow to our dignity, a reminder ... that we are (to borrow a phrase from Shakespeare) "stinkingly dependent."
GAYLE GREENE
Insomniac
Sleep is truly a thief who ravishes our greatest treasures.
ANONYMOUS
"Early Rising", Catholic World, vol. 5
Frequent naps will keep you from getting old, especially if you take them while driving.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep -- that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Mont Blanc"
When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host. Instinctively, when he awakes, he looks to these, and in an instant reads off his own position on the earth's surface and the time that has elapsed during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks.
MARCEL PROUST
Swann's Way
Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations.
MICHAEL ONDAATJE
The English Patient
There surely is some Life beyond
The state of man's mere waking mind:
Whereto -- Earth-blind --
Men's spirits creep
From out the sepulchre of sleep.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
"The Existence Dual", Cloudrifts at Twilight
Life dreams itself, contents to keep
Happy immortality, in sleep.
ARTHUR SYMONS
"Alle Zattere"
Close your eyes now and kiss me
And whisper you'll miss me
Sleep tight
Sleep well
Sleep warm
DEAN MARTIN
"Sleep Warm"
I softly sink into the bath of sleep:
With eyelids shut, I see around me close
The mottled, violet vapors of the deep,
That wraps me in repose.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
"Sleeping and Dreaming"
Sleep soothes and arrests the fever-pulse of the soul.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Run the streets, all day. I can sleep, when I die.
JAY WAYNE JENKINS
"Soul Survivor"
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
Don Quixote
That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Themes and Variations
Too much sleep makes a person heavy and stupid, and those who wish to become useful to the community in their journey through life, must not take upon their backs much useless slumber.
E. L. BLANCHARD
Flights of Fancy: A Medley of Quips and Cranks in Prose and Verse