Sleep: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations
The innocent sleep: Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast.— M. ii. 2
Please you, Sir, Do not omit the heavy offer of it: It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth, It is a comforter.— T. ii. 1
Weariness Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth Finds the down pillow hard.— Cym. iii. 6
How many thousands of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh mine eye-lids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies, to thy slumber; Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody? O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile, In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couck A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell? Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains, In cradle of the rude imperious surge; And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds, That, with the hurly, death itself awakes? Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy, in an hour so rude: And, in the calmest, and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.— H. IV. PT. II. iii. 1
The deep of night is crept upon our talk, And Nature must obey necessity.— J.C. iv. 3
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep. M. N. iii. 2. Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.— R. J. ii. 3.
To bed, to bed: Sleep kill those pretty eyes, And give as soft attachment to thy senses, As infants empty of all thought.— T. C. iv. 2
Fast asleep? It is no matter; Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber; Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies, Which busy care draws in the brains of men; Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.— J.C. ii. 1.
Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.— M. N. iii. 2.
So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow, For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe.— M. N. iii. 2.
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her.— Cym. ii. 2.