quotations about the moon
The moon pull'd off her veil of light,
That hides her face by day from sight
(Mysterious veil, of brightness made,
That's both her lustre and her shade),
And in the lantern of the night,
With shining horns hung out her light.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
We love the night and its quiet; and there is no night that we love so well as that on which the moon is coffined in clouds.
FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN
Classic Ghost Stories
I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it's the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at.
SUSAN BETH PFEFFER
Life As We Knew It
The moon ... was now emerging from the heavy clouds,
And looking through their shatter'd folds, like hope,
Upon the ills and sorrows of mankind.
DUGALD MOORE
"To the Moon"
There's no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon.
TOM ROBBINS
Still Life with Woodpecker
The myriads of mankind depart--they die,
They leave no vestige that they once have been,
But thou remain'st forever in the sky,
Renewing thy existence--night's fair queen!
DUGALD MOORE
"To the Moon"
The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring--and all of the acts carried out--on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
1Q84
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
MARK TWAIN
The Prince and the Pauper
The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
That's curded by the frost from purest snow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Coriolanus
Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.
NINON DE L'ENCLOS
attributed, Day's Collacon
I loved thee, gentle moon! thou wert to me
Brother and sister and companion--all
My kin, while standing on the silent lea
I watch'd thy glory in the starry hall;
And thy white beams like shower of diamonds fall
Upon the azure desert; lovely light,
Sure thou wert fashion'd, when Sin's fatal pall
Was flung o'er earth, to welcome her flight
The lone and weary soul that journeys through the night.
DUGALD MOORE
"To the Moon"
We may even speak of a metaphysics of the moon, in the sense of a consistent system of "truths" relating to the mode of being peculiar to living creatures, to everything in the cosmos that shares in life, that is, in becoming, growth and waning, death and resurrection.
MIRCEA ELIADE
The Sacred and the Profane
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
ANTON CHEKHOV
attributed, The Quotable Book Lover
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
WALTER SCOTT
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Paris Spleen
The Moon arose: she shone upon the lake,
Which lay one smooth expanse of silver light;
She shone upon the hills and rocks, and cast
Upon their hollows and their hidden glens
A blacker depth of shade.
ROBERT SOUTHEY
Madoc in Wales
I know not that there is anything in nature more soothing to the mind than the contemplations of the moon, sailing, like some planetary bark, amidst a sea of bright azure.
W. G. SIMMS
attributed, Day's Collacon
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, 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"
We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.
ROBERT FROST
"Going for Water"