Quotes
Quotes about Sleep
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here we will sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. -The Merchant of Venice. Act. v. Sc. 1.
She walks--the lady of my delight-- A sheperdess of sheep. Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She guards them from the steep. She feeds them on the fragrant height, And folds them in for sleep.
All Heaven and Earth are still, though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most.
Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.
Hey! Mr. Tamborine Man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread To curtain her sleeping world.
I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?
But I, in the chilling twilight stand and wait At the portcullis, at thy castle gate, Longing to see the charmed door of dreams Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!
Come to me now! O, come! benignest sleep! And fold me up, as evening doth a flower, From my vain self, and vain things which have power Upon my soul to make me smile or weep. And when thou comest, oh, like Death be deep.
How happy he whose toil Has o'er his languid pow'rless limbs diffus'd A pleasing lassitude; he not in vain Invokes the gentle Deity of dreams. His pow'rs the most voluptuously dissolve In soft repose; on him the balmy dews Of Sleep with double nutriment descend.
When the sheep are in the fauld, and a' the kye at hame, And all the weary world to sleep are gane.
Still believe that ever round you Spirits float who watch and wait; Nor forget the twain who found you Sleeping nigh the Golden Gate.
The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions: How he sware unto the Lord, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob; Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, Until I find a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.
Sleep is a death, O make me try, By sleeping, what it is to die: And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed.
How he sleepeth! having drunken Weary childhood's mandragore, From his pretty eyes have sunken Pleasures to make room for more-- Sleeping near the withered nosegay which he pulled the day before.
Of all the thoughts of God that are Borne inward unto souls afar, Along the Psalmist's music deep, Now tell me if that any is. For gift or grace, surpassing this-- "He giveth His beloved sleep."
Sleep on, Baby, on the floor, Tired of all the playing, Sleep with smile the sweeter for That you dropped away in! On your curls' full roundness stand Golden lights serenely-- One cheek, pushed out by the hand, Folds the dimple inly.
Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath, And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy.
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. There is only one thing, which somebody once put into my head, that I dislike in sleep; it is, that it resembles death; there is very little difference between a man in his first sleep, and a man in his last sleep.
There is nowhere in the world where sleep is so deep as in the libraries of the House of Commons.
