quotations about sleep
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
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
People are typically astonished at how deeply they sleep when they put on a black-out mask of the sort airlines provide on long-haul flights. The equation here is simple: quiet eyes = quiet mind = a brain that quickly falls asleep.
RICHARD E. CYTOWIC
"Four Ways to More Restful Sleep", Psychology Today, August 24, 2017
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"
Close your eyes now and kiss me
And whisper you'll miss me
Sleep tight
Sleep well
Sleep warm
DEAN MARTIN
"Sleep Warm"
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
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"
Even a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world.
HERACLITUS
Fragments
Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.
JOHN STEINBECK
The Grapes of Wrath
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"
It is a delicious moment, certainly, that of being well nestled in bed, and feeling that yon shall drop gently to sleep. The good is to come, not past; the limbs have just been tired enough to render the remaining in one posture delightful; the labor of the day is gone. A gentle failure of the perceptions creeps over you; the spirit of consciousness disengages itself once more, and with a slow and hushing degrees, like a mother detaching her hand from that of a sleeping child, the wind seems to have a balmy lid closing over it, like the eye--it is closed--the mysterious spirit has gone to take its airy rounds.
LEIGH HUNT
The Indicator, January 12, 1820
I try to be a good person at all times. I try to be nice to my co-workers and to my boss. I try, but without sleep, it's hard.
ROGER BLUHM
"Sleep is needed more than ever", Dodge City Daily Globe, August 24, 2017
Excessive proneness to sleep is a sign of decay and waste of brain.
ANONYMOUS
Harper's Magazine, October 1866
To sleep is to die.
DAVID GEMMELL
Lord of the Silver Bow
The number one cause of people not getting enough sleep, is just not dedicating enough time to get the sleep.
JASON HAUSMANN
"Sleep Deprivation in adults is more common than thought"
Let youth cherish sleep, the happiest of earthly boons, while yet it is at their command; for there cometh the day to all, when neither the voice of the lute nor the bird shall bring back the sweet slumbers that fell on their young eyes as unbidden as the dews.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
attributed, The Book of Humour, Wit & Wisdom: A Manual of Table-talk
Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Sleep is a natural reset button for our brain and body.
HANSA VENKATESWARAN
"Do you wake up looking tired or with dull skin? Here's what your morning face says about your health", Economic Times, August 29, 2017
In Sleep we lie all naked and alone, in Sleep we are united at the heart of night and darkness, and we are strange and beautiful asleep; for we are dying the darkness and we know no death.
THOMAS WOLFE
A Stone, a Leaf, a Door: Poems
Sleep is the gateway to those nightly visitations of the irrational.
GAYLE GREENE
Insomniac