Collection
Sleep quotes for the hour when the day will not switch off
Night is the part of the day we have written about the longest and understood the least. Long before anyone measured a sleep cycle, writers noticed the same two things we notice now: that sleep repairs something nothing else repairs, and that it cannot be forced. Every honest line about rest sits somewhere between those facts.
That is why so much of the good writing about sleep is really writing about the mind that refuses it. Shakespeare gives his best sleep lines to people who cannot sleep — a king, a murderer, a man arguing with his own death. The words last because they are not soothing in the greeting-card sense. They name the trouble first, which is usually what a restless mind actually wants.
We keep this collection small on purpose. Anything you read at midnight should be short enough to finish and calm enough not to start a new train of thought. One sentence, then the light off.
6 source-cited lines
“Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care.”
Macbeth, II.2“To sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there's the rub.”
Hamlet, III.1“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
The Tempest, IV.1“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
Henry IV, Part 2, III.1“The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.”
Nature, 1836“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”
Walden, 1854
Keep one line
Suunnittele sitaattikortti selaimessasi
Scrolling a list at midnight is the opposite of winding down. Set a single line from this page on a dusk sky in the Quote Studio and leave it on your Lock Screen, so the last thing you read tonight is already chosen.
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