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Adams, John • Aristotle • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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Quotations about sleep
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Got up late and would have liked to have got up later, which is a sad moral state to be in.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Journal of Arctic voyage (11 Jul 1880)
(Source)
There is a time for long tales, but there is also a time for sleep.
[Ὥρη μὲν πολέων μύθων, ὥρη δὲ καὶ ὕπνου.]
Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 11, l. 379 [Odysseus] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Rieu (1946)]
(Source)
On being asked by King Alcinoüs to continue his tale of journeying to the Land of the Dead. Original Greek. Alternate translations:
- '“Most eminent king,” said he, “times all must keep, / There’s time to speak much, time as much to sleep.' [tr. Chapman (1616)]
- "There is a time for talk, a time for rest." [tr. Hobbes (1675), l. 362]
- "Since yet the early hour of night allows / Time for discourse, and time for soft repose." [tr. Pope (1725)]
- "The time suffices yet / For converse both and sleep." [tr. Cowper (1792), l. 460-61]
- "Night is the time for converse, night for rest." [tr. Worsley (1861), st. 54]
- "A time there is for tales -- and a time for sleep!" [tr. Bigge-Wither (1869), l. 378]
- "There is a time for many words and there is a time for sleep." [tr. Butcher/Lang (1879)]
- "Time is for words abundant, and time for sleep maybe." [tr. Morris (1887)]
- "There is a time for stories and a time for sleep." [tr. Palmer (1891)]
- "There is a time for making speeches, and a time for going to bed." [tr. Butler (1898)]
- "There is a time for many words and there is a time also for sleep." [tr. Murray (1919)]
- "Surely there is a time for long speaking and a time for sleep." [tr. Lawrence (1932)]
- "There is a time for story telling; there is also a time for sleep." [tr. Fitzgerald (1961)]
- "It's true that there's still time for tales and talk, / yet there is, too, a time for sleep." [tr. Mandelbaum (1990)]
- "There is a time for many words, a time for sleep as well." [tr. Fagles (1996)]
- "There is a time for words and a time for sleep." [tr. Lombardo (2000), l. 389]
- "There is a time for long tales, and there is a time for sleep." [tr. Verity (2016)]
- "It is a time for many tales, but also a time for sleep." [tr. Wilson (2017)]
Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.
Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970) American educator, writer, critic, naturalist
The Twelve Seasons, “February” (1949)
(Source)
Is not short paine well borne, that brings long ease,
And layes the soule to sleepe in quiet grave?
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.Edmund Spenser (c. 1552-1599) English poet
The Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 9, st. 40 (1589-96)
(Source)
Then I went back to my hotel to think long thoughts. As is usual when I’m thinking long thoughts, I lay on the bed with my eyes closed. Susan says I often snore when thinking long thoughts.
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
Though sleep is called our best friend, it is a friend who often keeps us waiting!
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
The Steam House, Book 2, ch. 5 (1880)
(Source)
I’ve never understood all this fuss people make about the dawn. I’ve seen a few and they’re never as good as the photographs, which have the additional advantage of being things you can look at when you’re in the right frame of mind, which is usually around lunchtime.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
Last Chance to See, ch. 4 (1990)
I need my sleep. I need about eight hours a day, and about ten at night.
Bill Hicks (1961-1994) American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, musician [William Melvin "Bill" Hicks]
Performance at The Oxford Playhouse (11 Nov 1992)
Released on Salvation (2005) .
I believe long habits of virtue have a sensible effect on the countenance.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher
“Busy-Body Papers,” American Weekly Mercury (18 Feb 1729)
Don’t take tomorrow to bed with you.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) American preacher, writer
Inspiring Messages for Daily Living (1981 ed.)
O bed! O bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head!Thomas Hood (1799-1845) British humorist and poet
Miss Kilmansegg, and Her Precious Leg, “Her Dream”, st. 7 (1841-43)
To carry care to bed is to sleep with a pack on your back.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) Canadian politician, judge, humorist
Sam Slick’s Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Vol. 2 (1853)
You may batter your way through the thick of the fray,
You may sweat, you may swear, you may grunt;
You may be a jack-fool, if you must, but this rule
Should ever be kept at the front:–
Don’t fight with your pillow, but lay down your head
And kick every worriment out of the bed.Edmund Vance Cooke (1866-1932) Canadian poet
“Don’t Take Your Troubles to Bed”, l. 7 (1903)
Bed is a bundle of paradoxes; we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; and we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer
Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words (1865 ed.)
The worst things:
To try to sleep and sleep not.
To wait for one who comes not.
To try to please and please not.Other Authors and Sources
Arab proverb
There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (30 Sep 1837)
Up, Sluggard, and waste not life;
in the grave will be sleeping enough.Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher
Poor Richard’s Alamanack (Sep 1741)
Repeated as "There will be enough sleeping in the Grave" in "The Way of Wealth" (7 Jul 1756).
Sleep, ignorant of pain, sleep, ignorant of grief, may you come to us blowing softly, kindly, kindly come, king.
Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Philoctetes, l. 827.
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "Come, blowing softly, Sleep, that know'st not pain, / Sleep, ignorant of grief, / Come softly, surely, kingly sleep, and bless ...." [E. H. Plumptre (1871)]
IVANOVA: I’ve always had a hard time getting up when it’s dark outside.
SINCLAIR: But in space, it’s always dark.
IVANOVA: I know. I know.J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 1×13 “Signs and Portents” (8 May 1994)
