Quotes About Rest

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness

“Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
― Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine

“I am strong, but I am tired, Stephen, tired of always having to be the strong one, of always having to do the right thing.”
― Brenda Joyce, An Impossible Attraction

“In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.

(Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book.)”
― Thomas à Kempis

“Rest and be thankful.”
― William Wordsworth

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
― John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

“I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.”
― Beatrix Potter

“After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.”
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

“But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems

“Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“I make no secret of the fact that I would rather lie on a sofa than sweep beneath it.”
― Shirley Conran

“Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other - activity in rest and rest in activity - is the ultimate freedom.”
― Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000

“A change is as good as a rest.”
― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

“Silence

It has a sound, a fullness.
It's heavy with sigh of tree,
and space between breaths.
It's ripe with pause between birdsong
and crash of surf.
It's golden they say.
But no one tells us it's addictive.”
― Angela Long

“There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkenness—(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You've crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time.”
― Roger Zelazny, Isle of the Dead

“Wild dreams torment me as I lie. And though a god lives in my heart, though all my power waken at his word, though he can move my every inmost part - yet nothing in the outer world is stirred. thus by existence tortured and oppressed I crave for death, I long for rest.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One

“Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“In bed, I could climb in, if you ever rest. Then I could mount you like Everest.”
― Jarod Kintz, Seriously delirious, but not at all serious

“Stone and sea are deep in life
Two unalterable symbols of the world
Permanence at rest
And permanence in motion
Participants in the power that remains”
― Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever

“Rest and be thankful.”
― William Wadsworth

“Everything needs a break.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.”
― Alan Cohen

“Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.”
― Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God

“All right,’ Nico relented. ‘Maybe a little …’ He managed to take off his aviator jacket and wad it into a pillow before he keeled over and began to snore.”
― Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus

“Those who believe and their hearts become calm and contented with the remembrance of Allah...know that it is the remembrance of Allah alone that brings rest to the hearts.
(The Qur'an-surah ar-R'ad;28)”
― Anonymous

“My head aches, my eyes burn, my arms and legs have given up, and my face in the mirror has a grayish cast. The bed, across the room, calls in its unmistakable lover's croon, Come to me, come, only I can make you truly happy, oh, how happy I'll make you, don't resist, remember how you moan with pleasure the instant we touch.....

Laura Acosta”
― Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Fatigue Artist

“Women show men beauty in things beyond their ambitions. Women tell men to stop and smell the roses.”
― Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality