Sunset quotes can be beautiful sayings to describe the colors seen at sunset or metaphors used to apply the concept of a sunset to life. Whether you want a unique quote for your travel photos, or maybe an email signature, sunset quotes can deliver your message.
What is a Sunset?
A sunset is the time of day when the weather and light begin to change from day to night. In scientific terms, the period of sunset technically begins when the sun’s rays are partially blocked by the horizon creating an array of colors across the sky.
The period of sunset is finished when the shape of the sun can no longer be seen and only a few rays remain. The exact time of sunset is taken when the sun is halfway beneath the horizon.
The Science Behind Sunsets
The science behind sunsets revolves around the light emitted from the sun, also known as rays. The sun’s rays come in many different wavelengths. Each wavelength of light has its own associated color.
These wavelengths don’t usually look very colorful because they just look like white or yellow light to your eyes. The exception to this is when the light bounces off something, a process known as scattering.
When the sun is high in the sky, the rays don’t have to travel through as many layers of atmosphere and therefore they don’t usually scatter before they reach Earth. During sunset, however, the rays from the sun have to travel through more layers of the atmosphere.
As a result, more light is scattered, emitting colorful light. Red, yellow, and orange are the colors that typically have a long enough wavelength to meet your eyes after being scattered, which is why at sunset these are the colors you are likely to see.
Of course, other colors can additionally meet your eyes as well, and this is why sunsets can also have purple, and sometimes a bit of green.
Sunset Symbolism
Sunsets have long been a major aspect of the human experience. Even in ancient times, people used the sunset to create symbols and meaning for their society.
- Sunsets symbolize the completion of a cycle.
- Sunsets can be used to represent the end of something.
- Many religions relate sunset to the story of their god or deity.
- Sunsets are often used as a metaphor for beauty or a colorful experience.
- Many people use sunsets as a symbol of life and death and how they are intertwined.
- Sunsets are beautiful, but also often strange therefore for many they symbolize mystery.
- Because sunset is the time of day when elements of both day and night are present, many refer to sunset as a battle between good and evil.
Benefits of Sunset Quotes
Sunsets are a major aspect of life as they occur on a daily basis. Most people will need to use a sunset quote at some point in their life.
- Sunset quotes can be used as captions on social media posts.
- The sunset is seen as romantic. So a quote about the sunset can be a good thing to have on hand for a romantic date.
- Sunset quotes can be used as unique email signatures.
- Teachers can use sunset quotes as an example of a metaphor.
- Sunset quotes are beautiful sayings that can help you cheer up if you are feeling down.
50 of the Best Sunset Quotes to Keep on Hand
Quotes About Sunsets
- “Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful but because they are fleeting.” – Richard Paul Evans
- “Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under.” – C. JoyBell C.
- “I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don’t want to miss any of them.” – Suzanne Collins
- “Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of heaven.”—John Lubbock
- “Sunsets in themselves are generally superior to sunrises, but with the sunset, we appreciate images drawn from departed peace and faded glory.”—George Stillman Hillard
- “A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going.”—John Steinbeck
- “Foam is white and waves are grey; Beyond the sunset leads my way.”—J.R.R Tolkien
- “Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.” ― Jack Kerouac
- “Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It’s the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist.” ― Mia Kirshner
- “Outside the window, a bank of clouds appeared on the horizon, inching slowly across the sky, finally slipping across the Moon and blocking out its radiant light. As he clicked off his overhead light, he turned his eyes one last time to the heavens. Outside, in the newly fallen darkness, the world had been transformed. The sky had become a glistening tapestry of stars.” ― Dan Brown
Love and Sunset Quotes
- “Enjoy the beauty of a sunset, nature’s farewell kiss for the night.” – Sharon Rene
- “Sunsets are proof that endings can often be beautiful too.” – Beau Taplin
- “A sunrise or sunset can be ablaze with brilliance and arouse all the passion, all the yearning, in the soul of the beholder.”—Mary Balough
- “Meet me where the sky touches the sea.”—Jennifer Donnelly
- “All I ever wanted was to dream another sunset with you.”—MayDay Parade
- “Whenever you want to see me, always look at the sunset; I will be there.”—Grace Ogot
- “Dusk is just an illusion because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are there cannot be one without the other yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel I remember wondering to be always together yet forever apart?” ― Nicholas Sparks
- “my dear, I have nothing to say.
my heart burns
like the evening sky.” ― Sanober Khan - “I don’t know how long we stay that way, but we watch the sun go down together. The giant, burnt-orange sphere sinks towards the horizon, coloring the rock layers until it’s gone and the canyon is covered in shadow.” ― Jennifer Salvato Doktorski
Sunset Quotes for Instagram
- “Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset, and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.”—Ryu Murakami
- “That was her magic – she could still see the sunset, even on the darkest days.”—Atticus
- “A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.”—Claude Debussy
- “Sunsets are loved because they vanish.”—Ray Bradbury
- “Sunsets are my escape into the reality I want to continuously live.”—Rachel Roy
- “Live to revel in just another twilight. Life may sink and disappear along with the sunset never to rise again” ― Munia Khan
- “The more clouds you have in your sky, the more colorful sunset it will be.” ― Sajal Sazzad
Sunset Quotes About Life
- “A day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered.” – Nicholas Sparks
- “There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it.” – Cheryl Strayed
- “Sunsets are proof that no matter what happens, every day can end beautifully.” – Kristen Butler
- “The strange thing about the sunset is that we actually don’t want the sun to set. We want it to stay right on the horizon – not below it, not above it – just right on it.”—Mehmet Murat Ildan
- “Life does not come with instructions on how to live, but it does come with trees, sunsets, smiles and laughter, so enjoy your day.”—Debbie Shapiro
- “When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.”—Mahatma Gandhi
- “Sunrise paints the sky with pinks and the sunset with peaches. Cool to warm. So is the progression from childhood to old age.” ― Vera Nazarian
Inspirational Sunset Quotes
- “May every sunrise hold more promise and every sunset hold more peace.” – Umair Siddiqui
- “Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Why is sunset more colorful than sunrise? It’s an irony of life saying: ‘sometimes, good things happen in goodbyes.’”—Unknown
- “Really appreciate the sunset as you’re driving home, cursing all the terrible drivers on the road. Be where you are, when you’re there, rather than out there in the future, or back there in the past.”—Valerie Harper
- “The sky takes on shades of orange during sunrise and sunset – the color that gives you hope that the sun will set only to rise again.”—Ram Charan
- “With every sunset, a new hope is born, and an old expectation dies.”—Noor Unnahar
- “Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” ― Rabindranath Tagore
- “And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet I would remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.”― Ursula K. Le Guin
Short Sunset Quotes
- “Every sunset is an opportunity to reset.”– Richie Norton
- “Sunsets are like God’s paintings in the sky.” – Unknown
- “Sunset is still my favorite color, and rainbow is second.” – Mattie Stepanek
- “Every sunset is also a sunrise. It all depends on where you stand.”—Karl Schmidt
- “Don’t forget: Beautiful sunsets need cloudy skies…”—Paulo Coelho
- “The horizon changes but the sun does not.”—Joyce Rachelle
- “Twilight drops her curtain down and pins it with a star.” –Lucy Maud Montgomery
- “It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream.”—Bernard Williams
- “A sunset is the sun’s fiery kiss to the night.”—Crystal Woods