Ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that symbolizes work ethic, or toughness, or some other virtue — but really, it’s a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect.

I’m gettin’ tired way past where sleep rests me.

Most persons go to sleep rather gladly, yet sleep is virtual annihilation while it lasts; and if it should last forever the sleeper would be no worse off after a million years of it than after an hour of it.

The paradoxical situation with a vast number of people today is that they are half asleep when awake, and half awake when asleep, or when they want to sleep.

I am too tired, I must try to rest and sleep, otherwise I am lost in every respect. What an effort to keep alive! Erecting a monument does not require an expenditure of so much strength.

I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn't sleep.

Life, as parents know, can be supported on very little sleep.

So it comes to this; one doesn’t need rest. Why bother about sleep if one isn’t sleepy? That stands to reason, doesn’t it? Wait a minute, there’s a snag somewhere; something disagreeable. Why, now, should it be disagreeable? …Ah, I see; it’s life without a break.

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake.

Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep.

What’s worse is that long hours, excessive busyness, and lack of sleep have become a badge of honor for many people these days. Sustained exhaustion is not a badge of honor, it’s a mark of stupidity.

When I am tired, it is easy to believe that my exhaustion is the reason I am depressed and lonely and uninspired. But when I am well-rested [sic], I can realize that these negative feelings are not a result of too little sleep. They are a result of my being a miserable, hopeless, misanthropic wretch.

Sleep was like a phantom I was too tired to chase.

On the average, people spend at least one-third of their lives asleep. While asleep, all of us dream, although we may not remember our dreams. It is important to understand exactly what is occurring while we are in that altered state so that we can use that time of sleep to enhance our functioning in the waking state.