quotations about the moon
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"
Go out of the house to see the moon, and 'tis mere tinsel: it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Nature
Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.
NINON DE L'ENCLOS
attributed, Day's Collacon
There's no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon.
TOM ROBBINS
Still Life with Woodpecker
I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Paris Spleen
The moon will press her dimpled cheek
Against the bosom of the sky,
And, as we dreamed once, seem to speak
To silver clouds which drift them by.
HENRY ABBEY
"May Dreams"
Moonlight is a great beautifier, and especially of all that has been touched by the finger of decay, from a palace to a woman. It softens what is harsh, renders fairer what is fair, and disposes the mind to a tender melancholy in harmony with all around.
LADY BLESSINGTON
The Idler in Italy
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
ANTON CHEKHOV
attributed, The Quotable Book Lover
The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
That's curded by the frost from purest snow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Coriolanus
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
MARK TWAIN
The Prince and the Pauper
Her antiquity in preceding and surviving succeeding tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
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 at its rising and setting appears much larger than when high up in the sky. This is, however, a mere erroneous judgment; for when we come to measure its diameter, so far from finding our conclusion borne out by fact, we actually find it to measure materially less.
G. P. MORRIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
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"
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
The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
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
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
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