quotations about the moon
At night, the moon, a pregnant woman, walks cautiously over the slippery heavens.
RICHARD ALDINGTON
"London"
The moon, our own, earthly moon is bitterly lonely, because it is alone in the sky, always alone, and there is no one to turn to, no one to turn to it. All it can do is ache across the weightless airy ice, across thousands of versts, toward those who are equally lonely on earth, and listen to the endless howling of dogs.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
"A Story About the Most Important Thing", The Dragon
The moon at its rising and setting appears much larger than when high up in the sky. This is, however, a mere erroneous judgment; for when we come to measure its diameter, so far from finding our conclusion borne out by fact, we actually find it to measure materially less.
G. P. MORRIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Although the semicircle of the Moon is placed above the circle of the Sun and would appear to be superior, nevertheless we know that the Sun is ruler and King. We see that the Moon in her shape and her proximity rivals the Sun with her grandeur, which is apparent to ordinary men, yet the face, or a semi-sphere of the Moon, always reflects the light of the Sun.
JOHN DEE
Monas Hieroglyphica
We are going to the moon that is not very far. Man has so much farther to go within himself.
ANAÏS NIN
The Diary of Anaïs Nin
If the Sun and Moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
The moon, which was in her last quarter and was inclining all to one side, seemed fainting in the midst of space, so weak that she was unable to wane, forced to stay up yonder, seized and paralyzed by the severity of the weather. She shed a cold, mournful light over the world, that dying and wan light which she gives us every month, at the end of her period.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
"Love: Three Pages from a Sportsman's Book"
Here among flowers a single jug of wine,
No close friends here, I pour alone
And lift a cup to bright moon, ask it to join me,
Then face my shadow and we become three.
The moon never has known how to drink,
All my shadow does is follow my body,
But with moon and shadow as companions a while,
This joy I find will surely last till spring.
I sing, the moon just lingers on,
I dance, and my shadow scatters wildly.
When still sober we share friendship and pleasure,
Then entirely drunk each goes his own way--
Let us join in travels beyond human feelings
And plan to meet far in the river of stars.
LI BAI
"Drinking Alone by Moonlight"
Thou Moon! Sun of the Night,
Sister mystic of the Day;
Look down, pause in thy flight!
Calm me with thy aural ray,
Enchanting souls to silver sleep.
Look down from out thy airy keep,
My fevered senses hypnotize;
Shut out the World, whereto Mind flies--
Ambitious Mind, with travail sore;
Its fibre rest, its calm restore.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
"An Invocation", Cloudrifts at Twilight
We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perhaps man's greatest achievement. But it was while we were there, gathering rocks from the moon's desolate landscape, that we looked up and caught a glimpse of just how incredible our own planet was. Its singular astonishing beauty. We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.
JON STEWART
Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race
When the storm is over and night falls and the moon is out in all its glory and all you're left with is the rhythm of the sea, of the waves, you know what God intended for the human race, you know what paradise is.
HAROLD PINTER
Party Time
I made it to the moon and nothing changed.
WALTER BARGEN
"Mare Tranquillitatis"
The devil's in the moon for mischief; they
Who call'd her chaste, methinks, began too soon
Their nomenclature; there is not a day,
The longest, not the twenty-first of June,
Sees half the business in a wicked way,
On which three single hours of moonshine smile--
And then she looks so modest all the while!
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Moon!
Moon!
I am prone before you.
Pity me,
And drench me in loneliness.
AMY LOWELL
"On a Certain Critic"
That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind.
NEIL ARMSTRONG
remark upon becoming the first man to step onto the surface of the moon, July 20, 1969
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair.
SYLVIA PLATH
"The Moon and the Yew Tree", Ariel
Contact light.
BUZZ ALDRIN
the actual first words spoken from the surface of the Moon; over six hours later, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and uttered the immortal line "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", July 20, 1969
The moon hangs alien, heavy, like a lock on a door; the door is tightly shut.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
"The North", The Dragon: Fifteen Stories
Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The American Notebooks
While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.
JHUMPA LAHIRI
Interpreter of Maladies