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- The night
- Hath been to me a more familiar face
- Than that of man; and in her starry shade
- Of dim and solitary loveliness
- I learned the language of another world.
- Come, civil night,
- Thou sober-suited matron, all in black.
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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
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Night hath a thousand eyes.
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JOHN LYLY, Maides Metamorphose
- O thievish Night,
- Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
- In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars,
- That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
- With everlasting oil, to give due light
- To the misled and lonely traveller?
- All is well, tho' faith and form
- Be sunder'd in the night of fear.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, In Memoriam
Never greet a stranger in the night, for he may be a demon.
- Press close bare-bosom'd night -- press close magnetic nourishing night!
- Night of south winds -- night of the large few stars!
- Still nodding night -- mad naked summer night.
WALT WHITMAN, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Night is the other half of life, and the better half.
GOETHE, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
By night an atheist half believes in God.
EDWARD YOUNG, Night Thoughts
Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, The Devil and the Good Lord
The day is for honest men, the night for thieves.
EURIPIDES, Iphigenia in Tauris
- How beautiful is night!
- A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
- No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
- Breaks the serene of heaven.
ROBERT SOUTHEY, Thalaba the Destroyer
Oh each successive night that comes has something in it of an abandoned ember that is slowly burning out, and it falls swathed in ruins, surrounded by funereal objects.
PABLO NERUDA, The Night of the Soldier
Beware of the night, child. All cats are black in the dark.
- Death will come when thou art dead,
- Soon, too soon--
- Sleep will come when thou art fled;
- Of neither would I ask the boon
- I ask of the beloved Night--
- Come soon, soon!
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, To Night
Night, a more perfect day.
ARTHUR SYMONS, "Alla Dogana"
- God, like all highest things,
- Hides light in shade,
- And in the night his visitings
- To sleep and dreams are clearliest made.
ARTHUR SYMONS, "To Night"
Night is the mother of thoughts.
JOHN FLORIO, First Frutes
- Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
- Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
- Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
- This glorious canopy of light and blue?
JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE, To Night
- Dear Night! this world's defeat;
- The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb;
- The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat
- Which none disturb!
- Christ's progress, and His prayer-time;
- The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.
HENRY VAUGHAN, Silex Scintillans
Night always comes.
SISSY BOYD, Green Shoes
You can't stand up to the night until you understand what's hiding in its shadows.
CHARLES DE LINT, The Onion Girl
Forests in the day are friendly places. They remind you of Sunday walks, swooshing leaves, holding a parent's big, warm hand, or providing that hand yourself. At night the woods take the gloves off and remind you why you're nervous in the dark. Night forests say "Go find a cave, monkey-boy, this place is not for you."
MICHAEL MARSHALL, The Upright Man
- And I too under the stars,
- Alone with the night again,
- And the water's monotone;
- I and the night alone,
- And the world and the ways of men
- Farther from me than the stars.
ARTHUR SYMONS, "Veneta Marina"
Night, when words fade and things come alive.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, Flight to Arras
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