quotations about the moon
I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges.
NEIL ARMSTRONG
Apollo mission press conference, 1969
The moon climbed out of the ravine, blue, skinny, as if it had been fed on nothing but skimmed milk. It climbed out, and quickly slithered up and up along the finest thread--away from trouble, and on the very top it huddled, crouching on thin legs.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
"The Protectress of Sinners", The Dragon: Fifteen Stories
The moon, full-orbed, forsakes her watery cave,
And lifts her lovely head above the wave;
The snowy splendours of her modest ray
Stream o'er the glistening waves, and quivering play;
Around her, glittering on the heaven's arched brow,
Unnumbered stars, enclosed in azure, glow,
Thick as the dew-drops of the April dawn,
Or May-flowers crowding o'er the daisy lawn;
The canvas whitens in the silvery beam,
And with a mild pale-red the pendants gleam;
The masts' tall shadows tremble o'er the deep;
The peaceful winds a holy silence keep.
WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE
The Lusiad
Doth the moon care for the barking of a dog?
ROBERT BURTON
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Lord of the Rings
Up from the dark the moon begins to creep; and now a pallid, haggard face lifts she above the water-line: thus from the deep a drowned body rises solemnly.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Moonrise at Sea"
The moon, a softer but not less beautiful object than the sun, returns and communicates to mankind the light of the sun, in a gentle and delightful manner, exactly suited to the strength of the human eye; an illustrious and most beautiful emblem, in this and several other respects, of the Divine Redeemer of mankind.
T. DWIGHT
attributed, Day's Collacon
The sun goes down, and with him takes
The coarseness of my poor attire;
The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame
Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Romany Girl
Then I sped across the prairies of ether and stood upon the moon. It was no longer luminous, its hardness hurt my feet; And I found that it had nothing either to sell or give me; Its empty frankness was brutal as a blow.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Moonlight has deceived more than one traveler.
AL-HARIRI
attributed, Day's Collacon
How slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man's revenue.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
A Midsummer Night's Dream
See yonder fire! It is the moon
Slow rising o'er the eastern hill.
It glimmers on the forest tips,
And through the dewy foliage drips
In little rivulets of light,
And makes the heart in love with night.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Christus, the Golden Legend
The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped fields lay yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp black shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was a deep, crystalline blue, and the stars were few and faint. Everything seemed to have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, under the great, golden, tender, midsummer moon. The splendor of it seemed to transcend human life and human fate.
WILLA CATHER
The Bohemian Girl
The moon is a silver pin-head vast,
That holds the heaven's tent-hangings fast.
WILLIAM R. ALGER
"The Use of the Moon", Poetry of the Orient
I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it's the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at.
SUSAN BETH PFEFFER
Life As We Knew It
We love the night and its quiet; and there is no night that we love so well as that on which the moon is coffined in clouds.
FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN
Classic Ghost Stories
The moon is fat and the night air is so pure it seems edible.
ROBERTO BOLAÑO
2666
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"
The moon pull'd off her veil of light,
That hides her face by day from sight
(Mysterious veil, of brightness made,
That's both her lustre and her shade),
And in the lantern of the night,
With shining horns hung out her light.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Hudibras
Soft moonlight and tender love harmonize together wonderfully.
NINON DE L'ENCLOS
attributed, Day's Collacon