evening quotes

  • Coldly, sadly descends The autumn evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of withered leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;hardlya shout From a few boys late at their play!

    - Matthew Arnold
      New Poems,'Rugby Chapel, November1857'.

  • Late at e'en, drinkin'the wine, And ere they paid the lawin', They set a combat them between, To fight it at the dawin'. 'O stayat hame, my noble lord, O stay at hame, my marrow! My cruel brother will you betray On the dowie houms o' Yarrow!'

    -Ballads
    'The Dowie Houms o' Yarrow'.

  • I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, My morning incense, and my evening meal, The sweets of Hasty-Pudding.Come, dear bowl, Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul.

    -Joel Barlow
      'The Hasty-Pudding', canto1

  • And low the mists of evening lie And lightly skims the midge.

    - SirJohn Betjeman
      New Bats in Old Belfries,'Henley-on- Thames'.

  • They go to and fro in the evening: they grin like a dog, and run about through the city.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Psalm 59:6.

  • Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles.

    - Robert Browning
      Men and Women,'Love among the Ruins'.

  • Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

    -Dodgson
      Song of the Mock Turtle.  Alice's  Adventures in Wonderland, ch.10.

  • Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

    -William Cowper
      The Task, bk.4,'The Winter Evening', l.34^9.

  • Come in the evening, or come in the morning, Come when you're looked for, or come without warning.

    -Thomas Osborne Davis
      'The Welcome'.

  • When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day's occupation that is known as the cocktail hour.

    - Bernard DeVoto
    The Hour.

  • Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      'The Love Song of  J  Alfred Prufrock' (first published in Poetry magazine, collected in Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917), opening lines.

  • The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      Prufrock and Other Observations,'Preludes', pt.1.

  • And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      The Waste Land, pt.1,'The Burial of the Dead'.

  •    Auld Reikie! wale o' ilka town That Scotland kens beneath the moon; Whare couthy chiels at e'ening meet Their bizzing craigs and mous to weet.

    - Edna Ferber
      'Auld Reikie,  A Poem'.

  •    The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce. 408

    - Oliver Wendell Holmes
    Over the Teacups, ch.1.

  • Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose.

    - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
      'The VillageBlacksmith', stanza 7. Collected in Ballads and other Poems (1841).

  • In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each canbecomeaccomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing todayand another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening or criticize after dinner, just as I desire, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

    - Karl Heinrich Marx
      The German Ideology (with Friedrich Engels).

  • And later, wondering farmers as they passed would hear beyond the lighted window in the autumn evening two handsome yellow-bosomed basset-hounds howling to a melodious basset-horn.

    - Edwin George Morgan
      'An  Addition to the Family'.

  • Barely a twelvemonth after The seven days war that put the world to sleep, Late in the evening the strange horses came.

    - Edwin Muir
      One Foot in Eden,'The Horses'.

  • May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

    -John Henry Newman
      'Wisdom and Innocence', collected in Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day.

  • So when I am wearied with wandering all day; To thee my delight in the evening I come: No matter what beauties I saw in my way: They were but my visits; but thou art my home.

    - Matthew Prior
      'A BetterAnswer', stanza 6.

  • There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell†divine as the vale of Tempe; you might have seen the gods there morning and eveningApollo and the sweet Muses of the Light† You enterprised a railroad†you blasted its rocks away† And, now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.

    -John Ruskin
    ^8  Praeterita, vol.3, pt.4,'Joanna's Cave', note.

  • It was a summer evening, Old Kasper's work was done, And he before his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the green His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

    - Robert Southey
      'The Battle of Blenheim'.

  • On dirait que l'a"  me des justes donne, comme les fleurs, plus de parfums vers le soir. It seems that the soul of the just gives off, like flowers, a stronger scent towards evening.

    - Germaine Necker, Baronne de Stae«  l
      Corinne ou de l'Italie.

  • And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

    -Wallace Stevens
      Harmonium,'Sunday Morning', pt.8.

  • Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 6, l.7^8.

  • I stand before you tonight in my green chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up, my fair hair gently waved†the Iron Lady of the Western World? Me? A Cold War warrior? Well, yesif that is how they wish to interpret my defence of values and freedoms fundamental to our way of life.

    - Margaret HildaThatcher, Baroness Thatcher
      Speech, Dorking. Alluding to the title bestowed upon her by the Soviet defence journal, in Red Star, 31 Jan.

  • My dear fellow, a unique evening! I wouldn't have left a turn unstoned.

    - Arthur Wimperis
    After watching a vaudeville show. Quoted in E Short FiftyYears of Vaudeville (1946).

  • It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea: Listen! the mighty being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thundereverlastingly.

    -William Wordsworth
      'It is a beauteous evening calm and free', l.1^8 (published 1807).

  • I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
      'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', stanzas1^2. Collected in The Rose (1893).

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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