QuoteFilter: "Anyone who goes to sleep before midnight has something to hide."

June 16, 2006 1:33 PM

I'm looking for a quote that I vaguely remember as "Anyone who goes to sleep before midnight has something to hide", along with any quotes with a similar message.

In general, I'm looking for quotes that reject the premise of Benjamin Franklin's famous "early to bed, early to rise" statement.

But specifically, I remember a quote along which goes something like "Anyone who goes to sleep before midnight has something to hide", or maybe "I'm suspicious of anyone who goes to bed before midnight", but my google-fu isn't turning up that quotation.

Of course any quotes putting the smack-down on early sleepers and/or early risers are also interesting. Thanks!

posted by IvyMike to society & culture (19 comments total)

Only semi-related and I can't find who to attribute it to, but I've always liked: "The sun never sets on the English empire because God doesn't trust the English in the dark"
posted by chndrcks at 1:38 PM on June 16, 2006

The only quote on this topic I can remember is from the Animaniacs:
Early to rise and early to bed/ Makes a man healthy, but socially dead. :)
posted by hyperfascinated at 1:40 PM on June 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

No help on the first quote, but here's the results of some Googling:

As with all internet quotations, assume they're apocryphal until you can hunt them down yourself.

"Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience—unless they are still up."
Ellen Goodman

"Early to rise and early to bed
Makes a man healthy and wealthy and dead."
James Thurber, Fables for Our Times, 1940

"Dawn: When men of reason go to bed."
Ambrose Bierce

"Well enough for old folks to rise early, because they have done so many mean things all their lives they can't sleep anyhow."
Mark Twain

Of course, I like to be up around 6am, personally. Different strokes.
posted by Hildago at 1:47 PM on June 16, 2006

From a friend who would never answer her phone in the morning: "good news waits'tl noon"

Yeah, that's right, waits'tl
posted by fleacircus at 1:56 PM on June 16, 2006

Really weird, that quote does ring a faint bell, but my google-fu failed me too. (I remember it something like: "I don't trust anyone who goes to sleep before midnight")
posted by ruelle at 2:11 PM on June 16, 2006

"I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death." (Nas, Greg Dulli)
posted by JekPorkins at 2:19 PM on June 16, 2006

Late to rise and early to bed keeps you short on trouble and long on bread.
-Riley
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:21 PM on June 16, 2006

I found this thru Google:

"Whoever goes to bed before midnight is a rogue."
Dr. Samuel Johnson

However, I did an exact text search and didn't come up with further results for that quote, so it may not be accurate.
posted by evil holiday magic at 3:00 PM on June 16, 2006

John Ciardi has a great poem called "4:00 A.M. on the Terrace," from the book In Fact. (But argh, I let someone borrow my copy of the book two weeks ago and thus I can't quote from it . . .) The poem's also in the Collected Poems of John Ciardi.

The gist of the poem is: sure, I should go to bed early, "as anyone can" . . . but then who will stay up late and discover all the cool sounds and things that happen in the middle of the night?
posted by oldtimey at 3:03 PM on June 16, 2006

ehm, there's "Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel." ⊱.
posted by fleacircus at 3:05 PM on June 16, 2006

or there's this one: "No civilized person ever goes to bed the same day he gets up." - Richard Harding Davis.
posted by oldtimey at 3:21 PM on June 16, 2006

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed. - Ambrose Bierce
posted by LadyBonita at 3:32 PM on June 16, 2006

The sorely missed Mark Sandman of Morphine wrote a whole song (called "Early to Bed," natch) about your question:

Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man or woman miss out on the night life (2x)
One drink call it a early night
Soon you're curled up beneath the reading light
Or you bathe in the TV's blue tint
On your pillow an after-dinner mint
Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man or woman miss out on the night life (2x)
Early to bed so you can wait
For three buses a trolley and a train
I think it's worth it for you to stay awake
Maybe tomorrow you'll be a little late
But early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man or woman miss out on the night life
Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man or woman miss out on the night life
You'll miss out on the night life (x2)
posted by Kronoss at 6:40 PM on June 16, 2006

There's an entry in the "fortune" database on my machine that attriutes this quote to Emily Dickinson:
"To whom the mornings are like nights,
What must the midnights be!"

The Wikiquote page for Emily Dickonson has this version:
"To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,
What must the Midnights — be!"
posted by Godbert at 9:25 PM on June 16, 2006

"Sleep - those little slices of death, how I loathe them" ~Edgar Allen Poe (Source)
posted by DrtyBlvd at 2:22 AM on June 17, 2006

Liked this one too:
"It's a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it's light out" ~Calvin
posted by DrtyBlvd at 2:23 AM on June 17, 2006

"Good news always sleeps til noon" courtesy of The Cowboy Junkies.
posted by verytres at 8:43 AM on June 17, 2006

"No civilized person ever goes to bed the same day he gets up." - Richard Harding Davis.

That one doesn't make any sense to me as an "early risers==bad people" quote. If I go to bed at 10pm and get up at 7am, I'm getting up on a different day than the one I went to sleep on. On the other hand, if I go to bed at 2am and get up at 11am, I'm going to bed on the same day I wake up.
posted by Hildago at 9:51 AM on June 17, 2006

Maybe a bit cheesy, but what about:

"The early bird gets the worm, but look what happens to the early worm"
posted by chimmyc at 10:26 AM on June 17, 2006