Vigil Quotes

To look back is to relax one's vigil. (Bette Davis)

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.

Marc Chagall

Love, unconquerable, Waster of rich men, keeper Of warm lights and all-night vigil In the soft face of a girl: Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor! Even the pure immortals cannot escape you, And mortal man, in his one day's dusk, Trembles before your glory.

Sophocles

As we maintain the vigil of peace, we must remember that justice is a vigil, too - a vigil we must keep in our own streets and schools and among the lives of all our people - so that those who died here on their native soil shall not have died in vain.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Such a caring for death, an awakening that keeps vigil over death, a conscience that looks death in the face, is another name for freedom.

Jacques Derrida

And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures up a wrong.

Lord Byron

The children would remember for the rest of their lives the august solemnity with which their father, devastated by his prolonged vigil and by the wraith of his imagination, revealed his discovery to them: 'The world is round, like an orange.

Gabriel García Márquez

Here in this strong City of Refuge which enshrines the title-deeds of human progress and is of deep consequence to Christian civilisation; here, girt about by the seas and oceans where the Navy reigns; shielded from above by the prowess and devotion of our airmen-we await undismayed the impending assault. Perhaps it will come tonight. Perhaps it will come next week. Perhaps it will never come. We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting a sudden violent shock or-what is perhaps a harder test-a prolonged vigil. But be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy-we shall ask for none.

Winston Churchill

We are called to honor our own words of reverent prayer with resolution in the deeds we must perform to preserve peace and the hope of freedom. We keep a vigil of peace around the world. Until the world knows no aggressors, until the arms of tyranny have been laid down, until freedom has risen up in every land, we shall maintain our vigil to make sure our sons who died on foreign fields shall not have died in vain.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Keeping vigil over her are two monsters of very different breeds but monster just the same. Death on her left. Devil on her right.

Karen Marie Moning

Notices for Vigil meetings were always posted on the main bulletin board in the first-floor corridor, directly across from the Headmaster's office. Archie was entertained by the location of the notice right under Leon's nose. The notice was simple, involving the words TRINTY HIGH SCHOOL at the top of the board. On the day of the meeting, the Y of Trinity was inverted. Which made it look, as Archie said, like an upright finger. Thus, the Vigils giving the finger to the world while calling a meeting. That's what the upside-down Y was called: the Finger. (Robert Cormier)

According to some of the pious writers of antiquity, they made large fires, which might be seen at a great distance, upon the vigil of this saint [John], in token that he was said in holy writ to be "a shining light." Others, agreeing with this, add also, these fires were made to drive away the dragons and evil spirits hovering in the air; and one of them gravely says, in some countries they burned bones, which was called a bone-fire; for "the dragons hattyd nothyng mor than the styncke of brenyng bonys." This, says another, habent ex gentilibus, they have from the heathens. The author last cited laments the abuses committed upon thes occasions. "this vigil," says he, "ought to be held with cheerfulness and piety, but not with such merriment as is shewn by the profane lovers of this world, who make great fires in the streets, and indulge themselves with filthy and unlawful games, to which they add glotony and drunkenness, and the commission of many other shameful indecencies."

Joseph Strutt

It was one long, anxious, inexorable, eternal vigil.

Frank James

I know there are some people in British Columbia who are still holding a vigil for '3rd Rock'.

Wayne Knight

Ever sits the lady weeping - Weeping night and day - One perpetual vigil keeping, Till life pass away, And she join the seven who sleep.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Only drunks stare at statues .... I never liked the statues keeping vigil, primarily because they were too close to life.

Amit Chaudhuri

These (prostitution, pedophilia, and child abuse) are of concern to us and it is important that while we advertise tourism, we should also educate our people in keeping a close vigil on what is happening as the side effect of tourism.

Koila Nailatikau

And I cry – I who am a son of the land of Poland and who am also Pope John Paul II – I cry from all the depths of this Millennium, I cry on the vigil of Pentecost: Let your Spirit descend! Let your Spirit descend! And renew the face of the earth. The face of this land!

Pope John Paul II

At dawn, worn out by the tormented vigil, he appeared in the cell an hour before the execution. "The farce is over, old friend," he said to Colonel Gerineldo Marquez. "Let's get out of here before the mosquitos in here execute you." Colonel Gerineldo Marquez could not express the disdain that was inspired in him by that attitude. "No, Aureliano," he replied. "I'd rather be dead than see you changed into a tyrant." "You won't see me," Colonel Aureliano Buendía said. "Put your shoes and help me get this shitty war over with." When he said it he did not know that it was easier to start a war than to end one.

Gabriel García Márquez

I feel in my sinews The spreading of shadows Converging together With a shiver And in solitary vigil After flights triumphal My head rise From this scythe Through a clean rupture That serves to dissever The ancient disharmony With the body As drunk from fasting It persists in following With a haggard bound Its gaze profound Up where the frozen Absolute has chosen That nothing shall measure Its vastness, O glacier But according to a ritual Illumined by the principle That chose my consecration It extends a salutation.

Stéphane Mallarmé