quotations about sleep
Sleep is so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.
THOMAS BROWNE
Religio Medici
Thee are the spells that to kind sleep invite,
And nothing does within resistance make,
Which yet we moderately take;
Who would not choose to be awake.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley
As you make your bed, so you will sleep.
SWEDISH PROVERB
How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.
BRAM STOKER
Dracula
Sleep comes like a drug in God's country
Sad eyes, crooked crosses, in God's country
Set me alight, we'll punch a hole right through the night.
Every day the dreamers die to see what's on the other side.
U2
"In God's Country"
When pillow talks turn to pillow fights
Remember before you say goodnight
To make up before you go to sleep
So pillow fights turn to pillow dreams
GALANTIS
"Pillow Fight"
Loved Sleep! methinks I feel thee o'er me hover,
Thy seraph wings expanding to descend:
They fan me now, their balmy wavings blend
Along my brow; strange elf-light things come over
My fancied sight: now thought's unmeaning train
Runs through my mind; and, like a spell-bound lover,
I am enslaved with a bewitching chain--
Loved Sleep!
ROBERT LEIGHTON
"To Sleep"
There, in the depths of sleep, is the communion of the living and the dead.
GENNADY AYGI
Veronica's Book
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
ANONYMOUS
The great modification which the act of awakening effects in us is not so much that of ushering us into the clear life of consciousness, as that of making us lose all memory of the slightly more diffused light in which our mind had been resting, as in the opaline depths of the sea. The tide of thought, half veiled from our perception, on which we were still drifting a moment ago, kept us in a state of motion perfectly sufficient to enable us to refer to it by the name of wakefulness. But then our actual awakenings produce an interruption of memory. A little later we describe these states as sleep because we no longer remember them.
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
Fair Sleep! mind-soothing, soul-bewitching Sleep!
Come, fair enchantress, I would with thee speak--
O come, and fan this fever from my cheek:
I now with Thought no more communion keep;
Be not afraid, fair spirit, to alight;
Thy breath will soothe me into slumbers deep;
My weary brain hath need of them tonight--
Come Sleep!
ROBERT LEIGHTON
"To Sleep"
Close your eyes and you will see
Microflashing neon lights
Open your eyes and you will see
It still looks like the same thing
Lie and wait for sleep and listen
To your heart beat too fast for sleep
Close your eyes and you will see
The sound-a-sleep
BLONDIE
"Sound Asleep"
Far from a passive state of being dead-to-the-world, sleep is part of a complex neurological rhythm that we can condition ourselves to. Much as an exercise regime conditions the muscles, establishing a sleep routine trains the brain to undo the stresses of the day.
RICHARD E. CYTOWIC
"Four Ways to More Restful Sleep", Psychology Today, August 24, 2017
Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You've crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Isle of the Dead
Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
BIBLE
Ephesians 5:14
Blessed sleep, kindest minister to man,
Sure and silent distiller of the balm of rest,
Having alone the power, when naught else can,
To soothe the torn and sorrow-ridden breast.
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
"Blessed Sleep"
My bones wish to escape
And run along an alien expanse
To collapse from the heat
In a cartoonish heap
To sleep oh to sleep
SPARKLEHORSE
"Box of Stars"
Good night, sleep tight
Don't let the bedbugs bite.
But if they do, take your little shoe
And beat them black and blue.
ANONYMOUS
"Good Night, Sleep Tight"
Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.
AUDREY NIFFENEGGER
The Time Traveler's Wife
A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
The Professor