'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.'

'All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.'

- "The Lord of the Rings" author JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)

A quote by Florence Nightingale

"Poetry and imagination begin life."

'I can’t go back to yesterday–because I was a different person then.'

- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" author Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)

'The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.'

- Poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

Peruse the works of spooky 19th-century writer Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe is one of the central figures of Gothic and Romantic literature of the 19th century, penning famous short stories like "The Tell-Tale Heart" and the long poem "The Raven." This digital library collects over 130 of his works in one...

'I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.'

- American novelist Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

'It's those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.'

- Author Malcolm Gladwell (1963 - present)

'Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.'

- Pablo Picasso

'The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.'

-Writer J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

During dream sleep, the brain connects new information learned during the day with information already stored in the mind, creating a revised mind-wide web of associations.

We dream for around two hours each night, on average, but the exact purposes of dreams remains under investigation.

'The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.'

- Mark Twain, from "Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales"

Sleeping on a problem does seem to help—in fact research published in 2026 suggests scientists can seed people's dreams with sound cues about a difficult puzzle during REM sleep and they'll be better able to solve it.

'Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.'

- Legendary author Jane Austen (1775 -1817)

Dreams have long been used for religious and political power.

'Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.'

- Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

A quote by Herman Melville

"Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence."

'It might be that some day I shall be drowned by the sea, or die of pneumonia from sleeping out at night, or be robbed and strangled by strangers. These things happen. Even so, I shall be ahead because of trusting the beach, the night and strangers.'

-Janet Reno, the US' first female attorney general (1938-2016)

'The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.'

- Marine biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

'And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others.'

-Ralph Ellison, from "Invisible Man" (1913-1994)

'The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd.'

- Poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

- Author Jack London (1876 - 1916)

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ in three days, then burned it

Stevenson woke from a dream and instantly got to writing the “fine bogey tale” he’d witnessed in his sleep. He finished a draft three days later and read it to his wife, who suggested it needed revising. Stevenson eventually agreed and threw the manuscript into the fireplace. He got back to work and emerged three more days later with another draft.

'There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.'

-Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

'I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning ... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.'

- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

Nightmares are unpredictable, but are linked to stress, anxiety, trauma, and more.

'Fear of life closes off more opportunities for us than fear of death ever does.'

- Actress Agnes Moorehead (1900–1974)

'I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.'

- Author Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog' is an iconic romantic artwork

Caspar David Friedrich’s painting portrays man’s fascination with the natural world and emphasizes his smallness in the midst of its grandeur, epitomizing Edmund Burke's concept of "the sublime."

'Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.'

- Maya Angelou

'The best way to make a dream come true is to wake up.'

- Fashion icon Anna Wintour (1949 – present)

What it's like to live with insomnia

The biological process Shakespeare referred to as the chief nourisher of life's feast is necessary for the body and mind to rest and repair from the activities of daily life. As sleep evades the exhausted, sufferers also lose emotional stability, mental clarity, social connections, and more while simultaneously gaining waves of interrupted biological processes that can lead to disease and death.

'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.'

-Charles Dickens (1812-1870), in "Our Mutual Friend"

Mathematicians often solve problems using wordless mental processes

It's a common technique among expert mathematicians, where thinkers rely on intuition, blurry perceptions and subconscious work—no writing, no formulas. The state is distinct from daydreaming, and often relies on sudden illuminations stemming from extended periods of subconscious reflection.

Picasso was also a poet

In addition to his painting, Picasso wrote poetry, including several works that were published by his friend André Breton, founder of the surrealist movement, who described reading the poems as “being in the presence of an intimate journal, both of the feelings and of the senses, such as has never been kept before.”

Plato's allegory of the cave is a metaphor for the value of learning

In the story, which comes from the Socratic dialogue, "The Republic," a group of prisoners are confined in a cave since birth—chained and facing a wall with a fire behind them, so any glimpses of life were rendered by shadows. One prisoner escapes and lands in a strange and unfamiliar world, an analogy for the role of the philosopher.

Pareidolia, the cognitive bias that leads people to find meaning in randomness, helps explain why humans look for meaning in their dreams and even in their tea leaves.

'You shouldn't dream your film, you should make it!'

- Filmmaker Steven Spielberg (1946-present)

'A word after a word after a word is power.'

- Author Margaret Atwood (1939-present)

A prominent writer analyzes Thoreau's apparent contradictions

Some call Thoreau a monkish hermit living in the woods, while others say he's a privileged layabout who was playacting a simple life. In this essay, Rebecca Solnit argues that both of those assessments are caricatures that reduce a complex man who reckoned with complex ideas.

'There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.'

- Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

'In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.'

- Isaac Asimov

'Dracula' was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare

Bram Stoker, the author of the classic horror novel, said that a dinner of "dressed crab" led to unsettling dreams about "a vampire king rising from the tomb." He'd revisit that vision, eventually creating the iconic titular vampire.

'I don't know what you can say about a day when you see four beautiful sunsets.'

- Astronaut John Glenn (1921–2016)

Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats was fascinated by magic and the occult

The Irish poet and 1923 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature laid out his beliefs in a 1901 essay, entitled "Magic," and was a member of several organizations dedicated to occult and mystical practices.

Salvador Dalí idolized Freud but was disappointed after they met

Sigmund Freud's writings on dreams and the unconscious profoundly influenced Dalí and his work, and the artist came to idolize the Austrian psychoanalyst. When they met, Freud viewed Dalí as an odd curiosity, and the artist came away disappointed, significantly lowering his opinion of the psychoanalyst.

A history of "Memento Mori," from the ancients to today

The ancient Latin phrase 'memento mori' means 'remember you will die.' The counterintuitive utterance has long provided a moral and spiritual framework for individuals to evaluate their life's decisions and worldview. Though it appears morbid at first glance, the saying is meant to inspire a thirst for life. Review the various ways the idea has inspired different cultures in this article, from the Romans and Egyptians to contemporary tech leaders like Steve Jobs.