Melancholy Quotes - Page 16

• Gwynn, she was always talking about wanting to be drunk and honestly I did want to encourage that, I wanted to go to a bar with her and let all the stuff sobriety pushed down be released so I could catch it in my palms and finally kiss her. She was just so sad. Melancholy was a fleshy wave permanently cresting on her face, she had to speak through it when she talked.

  Michelle Tea

  Kissing, Talking, Drunk

  4 Copy quote

• Genius! thou gift of Heav'n! thou Light divine!
  Amid what dangers art thou doom'd to shine!
  Oft will the body's weakness check thy force,
  Oft damp thy Vigour, and impede thy course;
  And trembling nerves compel thee to restrain
  Thy noble efforts, to contend with pain;
  Or Want (sad guest!) will in thy presence come,
  And breathe around her melancholy gloom:
  To Life's low cares will thy proud thought confine,
  And make her sufferings, her impatience, thine.

  George Crabbe

  Art, Pain, Light

  George Crabbe (1812). “Tales”, p.191

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wise men mingle mirth with their cares, as a help either to forget or overcome them; but to resort to intoxication for the ease of one's mind is to cure melancholy by madness.

  Pierre Charron

  Wise, Men, Mind

  10 Copy quote

• There is not a more melancholy object than a man who has his head turned with religious enthusiasm.

  Joseph Addison

  Religious, Men, Enthusiasm

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Francis Prévost, Francis William Blagdon (1833). “The Spectator, in Miniature: Being the Principal Religious, Moral, Humourous, Satirical and Critical Essays, in that Publication Compressed Into Two Volumes”, p.70

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a constant sort of melancholy approach to acting that fuels me. I want to do everything.

  Sam Rockwell

  Acting, Fuel, Want

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Flowing water is at once a picture and a music, which causes to flow at the same time from my brain, like a limpid and murmuring rivulet, sweet thoughts, charming reveries, and melancholy remembrances.

  Alphonse Karr

  Sweet, Water, Remembrance

  Alphonse Karr, Rev. J. Wood (1855). “A Tour Round My Garden”, p.135

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Hence, loathèd Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.

  John Milton

  Sight, Midnight, Caves

  'L'Allegro' (1645) l. 1

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can remember, with unsteady feet,
  Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure
  In flowers, and toys, and sweetmeats, things which long
  Have lost their power to please; which when I see them,
  Raise only now a melancholy wish
  I were the little trifler once again,
  Who could be pleas'd so lightly.

  Robert Southey

  Flower, Feet, Long

  Robert Southey (1846). “The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey, LL. D. (later Poet Laureate.)”, p.306

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm not melancholy; I'm a happy-go-lucky person, kind of silly. I like funny things. I have a lot of energy. I tend to like music that's mellow, though.

  Norah Jones

  Silly, Funny Things, Energy

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  66 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gaiety is forgetfulness of the self, melancholy is memory of the self: in that state the soul feels all the power of its roots, nothing distracts it from its profound homeland and the look that it casts upon the outer world is gently dismayed.

  Adrienne Monnier

  Memories, Self, Roots

  Adrienne Monnier (1976). “The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier”, p.245, U of Nebraska Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• For the air of youth,
  Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign
  A melancholy damp of cold and dry
  To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume
  The balm of life.

  John Milton

  Air, Blood, Hopeful

  John Milton (1842). “The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors; and with Some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton, Derived Principally from Original Documents in Her Majesty's State-paper Office”, p.494

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I hardly know so melancholy a reflection as that parents are necessarily the sole directors of the management of children, whether they have or have not judgment, penetration or taste to perform the task.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Children, Reflection, Parent

  7 Copy quote

• All perfection is melancholy.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Perfection

  Margaret Oliphant (2015). “Delphi Works of Margaret Oliphant with Complete Stories of the Seen and Unseen”, p.3695, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• All things that we ordained festival
  Turn from their office to black funeral--
  Our instruments to melancholy bells,
  Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
  Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
  Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;
  And all things change them to the contrary.

  William Shakespeare

  Change, Cheer, Flower

  William Shakespeare (1871). “Romeo and Juliet”, p.247

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A melancholy sound is in the air,
  A deep sigh in the distance, a shrill wail
  Around my dwelling. 'Tis the Wind of night.

  William C. Bryant

  Distance, Night, Air

  4 Copy quote

• Christian society is like a bundle of sticks laid together, whereof one kindles another. Solitary men have fewest provocations to evil, but, again, fewest incitations to good. So much as doing good is better than not doing evil will I account Christian good-fellowship better than an hermitish and melancholy solitariness.

  Joseph Hall

  Christian, Men, Evil

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “The Works: Now First Collected : with Some Account of His Life and Sufferings. Devotional works”, p.21

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• I begin to suspect that England is the most melancholy country in the world.

  Natalia Ginzburg

  Country, World, England

  Natalia Ginzburg, Dick Davis (1989). “The Little Virtues”, p.21, Arcade Publishing

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sad dislike those who are cheerful, and the cheerful dislike the melancholy.

  Horace

  Cheerful, Dislike

  4 Copy quote

• The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
  [This miserable mode
  Maintain the melancholy souls of those
  Who lived withouten infamy or praise.]

  Dante Alighieri

  Soul, Neutrality, Moral

  168 Copy quote

• [The sea] is the healer and the reviver, it cleanses the cavities of self-disgust and melancholy, of sloth and negation with the salt solution of life. It cures the lethargies of flesh and spirit with the slap and shake of elemental force. It cradles and comforts. Give it trust and it holds you secure; fight it and it kills.

  Marya Mannes

  Ocean, Fighting, Self

  5 Copy quote

• To grieve for evils is often wrong; but it is much more wrong to grieve without them. All sorrow that lasts longer than its cause is morbid, and should be shaken off as an attack of melancholy, as the forerunner of a greater evil than poverty or pain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Grieving, Evil

  Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume III: 1777-1781”, p.128, Princeton University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a sense of melancholy isolation, life rapidly vanishing, all the usual things. It's very strange how often strong feelings don't seem to carry any message of action

  Philip Larkin

  Strong, Feelings, Usual

  Philip Larkin (2012). “Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica”, p.339, Faber & Faber

  45 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.

  Alain de Botton

  Blessed, Sadness, Perspective

  43 Copy quote

• An assembly of the states, a court of justice, shows nothing so serious and grave as a table of gamesters playing very high; a melancholy solicitude clouds their looks; envy and rancor agitate their minds while the meeting lasts, without regard to friendship, alliances, birth or distinctions.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Clouds, Gambling, Envy

  6 Copy quote

• Justice is often pale and melancholy; but Gratitude, her daughter, is constantly in the flow of spirits and the bloom of loveliness.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Daughter, Gratitude, Justice

  Walter Savage Landor (1824). “Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source