After each night we are emptier: our mysteries and our griefs have leaked away into our dreams.
—E.M. Cioran, 1949Quotes
It is not right for a ruler who has the nation in his charge, a man with so much on his mind, to sleep all night.
—Homer, c. 750 BCThose who are awake have a world that is one and common, but each of those who are asleep turns aside into his own particular world.
—Heraclitus, c. 500 BCNever greet a stranger in the night, for he may be a demon.
—Babylonian Talmud, c. 600The day unravels what the night has woven.
—Walter Benjamin, 1929I curse the night, yet doth from day me hide.
—William Drummond, 1616To know the abyss of the darkness and not to fear it, to entrust oneself to it and whatever may arise from it—what greater gift?
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1975Night affords the most convenient shade for works of darkness.
—John Taylor, 1750For most of us, nighttime dreaming brings us closer to our identities and our power than any activity in the waking world.
—Walter Mosley, 2000Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
Living is an ailment that is relieved every sixteen hours by sleep. A palliative. Death is the cure.
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort, c. 1790By night an atheist half believes a God.
—Edward Young, c. 1745What a man does abroad by night requires and implies more deliberate energy than what he is encouraged to do in the sunshine.
—Henry David Thoreau, 1852