Sleep Quotes

Sleep refers to the state of reduced consciousness during which a human or animal rests in a daily rhythm. It commonly describes an act or instance of sleeping, rheum, crusty or gummy discharge found in the corner of the eyes after waking, whether real or a figurative objectification of sleep (in the sense of reduced consciousness), and a state of plants, usually at night, when their leaflets approach each other and the flowers close and droop, or are covered by the folded leaves, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to the hibernation of animals, to rest in a state of reduced consciousness, and to cause (a spinning top or yo-yo) to spin on its axis with no other perceptible motion, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Sleep as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Additional shades of meaning include to accommodate in beds, to be slumbering in (a state), to be careless, inattentive, or unconcerned; not to be vigilant; to live thoughtlessly, to be dead; to lie in the grave, and to be, or appear to be, in repose; to be quiet; to be unemployed, unused, or unagitated; to rest; to lie dormant, which reinforce how the category can stretch across adjacent but still recognizable uses of the same term.

Featured Authors on Sleep

Photo of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

(1564-1616)