William Shakespeare Sleep Quotations

He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need: If thou sorrow, he will weep; If thou wake, he cannot sleep: Thus of every grief in heart He with thee does bear a part. These are certain signs to know Faithful friend from flattering foe.

Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things . . . nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.

I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the anciently, stealing, fighting.

Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.

Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.

Still it cried ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house: ‘Glamis hath murder’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more,—Macbeth shall sleep no more!

Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures: ‘tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil

Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, - 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.

Love's stories written in love's richest books. To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.

A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.

O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, 1710. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

To sleep perchance to dream

For some must watch, while some must sleep So runs the world away

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.

Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.

What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts...

Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.

If I shall be condemned Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you 'Tis rigor and not law.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Death-counterfeiting sleep.

Friends now fast sworn, Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart, Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love, Unseparable, shall within this hour, On a dissension of a doit, break out To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes, Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep To take the one the other, by some chance, Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends And interjoin their issues.

Day, night, late, early, At home, abroad, alone, in company, Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been To have her match'd; and having now provided A gentleman of princely parentage, Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd, Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts, Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man- And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender, To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love; I am too young, I pray you pardon me'!

Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? hamlet: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord. hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

O sleep! O gentle sleep! Nature's soft nurse.

This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd So many English kings.

Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more.

Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself.

I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting

Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep?

There is plenty of time to sleep in the grave

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep.

A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant.

Let fancy still in my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!

There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out.

To die: - to sleep: No more; and, by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.

The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape, In forms imaginary, th' unguided days And rotten times that you shall look upon When I am sleeping with my ancestors.

Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care.

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

He that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache

Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies Which busy care draws in the brains of men; Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distemper'd head So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:

O sleep! O gentle sleep! Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids 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 sound of sweetest melody?

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst. Nor steel nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

Downy sleep, death's counterfeit.

Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.

Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye.

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.

The deep of night is crept upon our talk, And Nature must obey necessity.

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?

On your eyelids crown the god of sleep, Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep As is the difference betwixt day and night The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team Begins his golden progress in the east.

Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.

To bed, to bed; sleep kill those pretty eyes, And give as soft attachment to thy senses, As infants empty of all thought.

Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache; but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.

'Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching!

The undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both.

But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly.

If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand. My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne, And all this day an unaccustomed spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.

What need I fear of thee? But yet I'll make assurance double sure, and take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live; That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, And sleep in spite of thunder

In sleep a king, but, waking, no such matter

Sleep seldom visits sorrow; when it doth, it is a comforter.

That, if then I had waked after a long sleep, will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked I cried to dream again.

Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days; Compare dead happiness with living woe; Think that thy babes were fairer than they were, And he that slew them fouler than he is: Bettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse: Revolving this will teach

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause; there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life

What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.