quotations about night
Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.
ELIE WIESEL
Dawn
Night is a stealthy, evil Raven, wrapped to the eyes in his black wings.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Day and Night"
Night is always "la nuit du jour", "the night of day": an instance subordinated to illumination and providing the day with its differentiation.
JOSEPH LIBERTSON
Proximity Levinas, Blanchot, Bataille and Communication
May night had fallen soft and warm, enwrapping with its grape-bloom colour and its scents the billion caprices, intrigues, passions, longings, and regrets of men and women.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
The Forsyte Saga
Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
The Devil and the Good Lord
The day is so long and white,
A road all dust,
Smooth monotony;
And the night at the end,
A hill to be climbed,
Slowly, laboriously,
While the stars prick our hands
Like thistles.
EVELYN SCOTT
"Twenty-Four Hours"
Lo, the night is love's best gift,
With the cares of day a-drift.
Moon and stars, the draping light
Of the love-wreathed couch of night.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Diana"
Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn?... Maybe night falls because it's heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Handmaid's Tale
A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
STEVE MARTIN
attributed, Words from the Wise
Sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,
Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
And in her vaulty prison stows the Day.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Rape of Lucrece
How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven.
ROBERT SOUTHEY
Thalaba the Destroyer
The night-wind is a minstrel, who for centuries has sung,
And darkness is the temple where his mighty harp is hung;
'T is strung with rays of starlight, and I love to hear him sweep
Those mystic chords, till Nature chants an anthem in her sleep.
ROSA VERTNER JEFFREY
"I Love to Hear the Wind Blow"
Night always comes.
SISSY BOYD
Green Shoes
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
and silently steal away.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Day Is Done"
The real terror of the night is in fact the comatose state of sleeping pills, in my opinion. It is better to open yourself to the magic of darkness than to condemn yourself to the deathly blackout of drugs, don't you think?
JOHN SELBY
Secrets of a Good Night's Sleep
The summer demands and takes away too much.
But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes.
JOHN ASHBERY
Self-Portrait in a convex Mirror
Blessed be the night, which conceals and protects things fair and foul with the same indifferent mantle.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Baltasar and Blimunda
Night bids us rest.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE
To Night
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Day is Done"