"Man's life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally flashes of light, the sudden brightness of which is so comforting and wonderful, that the moments of their appearance cancel out and justify the years of darkness."
Night quotes
Night
8.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Night
Browse quotes that often appear alongside night — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Night quotes (page 20 of 421)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night."
"Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden appearance. It's not a night twinkle with stars, an illuminated sleep, nor a drowsy vigil. It is the very edge of consciousness."
"If you should ask me where I've been all this time I have to say "Things happen." I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth, on the river ruined in its own duration: I know nothing save things the birds have lost, the sea I left behind, or my sister crying. Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock with day? Why the dark night swilling round in our mouths? And why the dead?"
"The night is shattered, and the blue stars shiver in the distance."
"I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder."
"Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night."
"In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, Heaven knows, anything goes. The world has gone mad today, and good's bad today, and black's white today, and day's night today."
"Seriously, the Olympic badminton players were apparently trying to lose on purpose, a big story. But really, think about it, if you train day and night for four years to be in the Olympics for badminton, in a way, haven't you already lost?"
"They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing."
"We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence."
"What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?"
"Refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either master the devil or throw him out With wondrous potency."
"The wild night is calling."
"It feels like a perfect night, to dress up like hipsters, and make fun of our exes."
"Oh you who are born of the gods, easy is the descent into Hell. The door of darkness stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps, and come back out into the brightness above, that is the work, that is the labor."
"A sold-out house my first night back. Do you have any idea what kinda pressure that is? I could have been at home in my warm bed, playing Nintendo."
"The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night."
"If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either"."
"We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven."