Solemn Quotes - Page 12

• A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Wise, Eye, Exercise

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Sickness may be the solemn occasion of God's intervention in a person's life.

  Paul Tournier

  May, Medical, Sickness

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• There is a good deal of solemn cant about the common interests of capital and labor. As matters stand, their only common interest is that of cutting each others throat.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Business, Cutting, Matter

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once Around the Sun”

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• Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

  Chief Seattle

  Dream, Native American, Heart

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• The voice of the Constitution is the inescapably solemn self-consciousness of the people giving the law unto themselves.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Self, Law, Voice

  E.L. Doctorow (2011). “Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution:: Selected Essays, 1977-1992”, p.124, Random House

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• Nothing ever happens but once in all this world. What I do now I do once for all. It is over and gone, with all its eternity of solemn meaning.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Events, Gone, World

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• Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is so valued that the letters forming it are seen as objects of solemn beauty.

  James Fenton

  Writing, Eye, Demand

  "The eyes have it" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2002.

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• America is an idea. And it's the solemn responsibility of each 'temporary' president to protect and nurture that noblest of all ideas - with integrity. This man, Mitt Romney, has shown - not through his experience, but through his actions and words - that he is unqualified to carry out that responsibility.

  Jennifer Granholm

  Integrity, Responsibility, Men

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• A marriage is a solemn affair. The tempest of emotions and the myriad of arrangements are giddying, and when one is faced with these, clothing seems to be the last of one's priorities.

  Daphne Guinness

  Priorities, Lasts, Emotion

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• Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.

  George Eliot

  Night, Voice, Silence

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.3820, Delphi Classics

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• Students today are a pretty solemn lot. One of the really notable achievements of the twentieth century has been to make the young old before their time.

  Robertson Davies

  Beauty, Achievement, Today

  Robertson Davies (1952). “Tempest-tost”, Clarke Irwin

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• What will the solemn Hemlock- What will the Oak tree say?

  Emily Dickinson

  Nature, Tree, Hemlock

  Emily Dickinson, Cristanne Miller (2016). “Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them”, p.47, Harvard University Press

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• Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.

  Pope Francis

  Moving, Circles, Ideas

  "The Pope: how the Church will change". Interview with Eugenio Scalfari, www.repubblica.it. October 1, 2013.

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• Today solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is the grace and need of our time. Society will be restored and renewed when all its members group themselves around our Emmanuel.

  Peter Julian Eymard

  Blessed, Grace, Needs

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• The United States stands at the pinnacle of world power. This is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future.

  Winston Churchill

  America, Accountability, Democracy

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• That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-- Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man.

  William C. Bryant

  Ocean, Men, Green

  William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

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• Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the sprit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment.

  Washington Irving

  Christmas, Feelings, Heartfelt

  Washington Irving (2015). “The Complete Short Stories of Washington Irving: The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveler, The Alhambra, Woolfert’s Roost & The Crayon Papers Collections (Illustrated): The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, Old Christmas, The Voyage, Roscoe, The Widow’s Retinue, An Old Soldier, Mountjoy, Don Juan, Woolfert’s Roost, Tales of The Alhambra and many more”, p.290, e-artnow

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• People are much too solemn about things - I'm all for sticking pins into episcopal behinds.

  Aldous Huxley

  People, Religion, Pins

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• To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Life, Lonely, Heart

  "Les Fleurs du Mal", "Le Guignon", a quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 440-55, 1922.

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• At the solemn moment of death, every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes one with the individual and all-knowing ego. But this instant is enough to show to him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life.

  Annie Besant

  Past, Men, Knowing

  Annie Besant (2017). “Death and After?”, p.21, BookRix

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• I have made a solemn vow never to send my drawings because people have cheated me. In particular, just today I found... that, having done a drawing of souls in Purgatory for the Bishop of St. Gata, he, in order to spend less, commissioned another painter to do the painting using my work. If I were a man, I can't imagine it would have turned out this way.

  Artemisia Gentileschi

  Men, Order, Drawing

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• How frightful a thing it is for the preacher when he becomes accustomed to his work, when his sense of wonder departs, when he gets used to the unusual, when he loses his solemn fear in the presence of the High and Holy One; when, to put it bluntly, he gets a little bored with God and heavenly things.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian, Bored, Littles

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• Prostrate on earth the bleeding warrior lies,
  And Isr'el's beauty on the mountains dies.
  How are the mighty fallen!
  Hush'd be my sorrow, gently fall my tears,
  Lest my sad tale should reach the alien's ears:
  Bid Fame be dumb, and tremble to proclaim
  In heathen Gath, or Ascalon, our shame
  Lest proud Philistia, lest our haughty foe,
  With impious scorn insult our solemn woe.

  William Somervile

  Lying, Fall, Warrior

  "The Lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan". Poem by William Somervile,

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• I watched them from the window, thy children at their play, And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away, And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child's own buoyant gladness Came gushing back again to me with a soft and solemn sadness; And feelings frozen up full long, and thoughts of long ago, Seemed to be thawing at my heart with a warm and sudden flow.

  Arthur Hugh Clough

  Children, Heart, Sadness

  Arthur Hugh Clough (1951). “Poems”, Oxford University Press

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• If the minority, and a small one too, is suffered to dictate to the majority, after measures have undergone the most solemn discussions by the representatives of the people, and their will through this medium is enacted into a law, there can be no security for life, liberty, or property; nor, if the laws are not to govern, can any man know how to conduct himself in safety.

  George Washington

  Men, Law, People

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1836). “The Writings of George Washington: pt. IV. Letters official and private, from the beginning of his presidency to the end of his life: (v. 10) May, 1789-November, 1794. (v. 11) November, 1794-December, 1799”, p.440

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