Solemn Quotes - Page 15

• I had crossed de line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but dere was no one to welcome me to de land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all
  was down in de old cabin quarter, wid de ole folks, and my brudders and sisters. But to dis solemn resolution I came; I was free, and dey should be free also; I would make a home for dem in
  de North, and de Lord helping me, I would bring dem all dere.

  Harriet Tubman

  Dream, Home, Land

  Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Harriet, the Moses of Her People (1969)

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• I would only believe in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall. Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Laughter, Believe, Fall

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.99, Penguin

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• Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.

  Joe Haldeman

  Book, Writing, Adultery

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• The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard. And to attain it, we must be aware of its full meaning - and ready to pay its full price.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Peace, Purpose, Pay

  Second Inaugural Address, en.wikisource.org. January 21, 1957.

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• Life is both sad and solemn. We are led into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other---and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Together, World, Life Is

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• The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.

  Annie Dillard

  Made, Jest, Earnest

  ANNIE DILLARD (1974). “PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK”

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• I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If as I believe that my theory is true & if it be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science. I therefore write this, in case of my sudden death, as my most solemn & last request, which I am sure you will consider the same as if legally entered in my will, that you will devote 400£ to its publication & further will yourself, or through Hensleigh [Wedgwood], take trouble in promoting it.

  Charles Darwin

  Believe, Book, Writing

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.116, Hackett Publishing

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• The oath of renunciation and allegiance is a solemn vow taken by thousands of immigrants each year to become a United States citizen. The oath is the fundamental statement of allegiance to the United States, and this allegiance is what unites America.

  Jim Ryun

  Taken, Years, America

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• Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilization in high boots

  Albert Einstein

  Fashion, Civilization, Boots

  In a letter to his cousin and second wife Elsa, during a visit to the University of Oxford, in collection donated to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel by Einstein's stepdaughter Margot, as quoted in "Einstein in no-sock shock", New Scientist, July 15, 2006.

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• But we must admit the possibility that continued investigation and experience will bring us ever nearer to that solemn moment, when the first man will rise from earth by means of wings, if only for a few seconds, and mark that historical moment which heralds the inauguration of a new era in our civilization.

  Otto Lilienthal

  Mean, Men, Civilization

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• One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune, one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Business, Spring, Responsibility

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.311, Penguin

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• There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Believe, People, Identity

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook E 59, 1799.

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• I became an altar boy because of the solemn face, but I got thrown out at fourteen for laughing. Because the priest used to mumble everything except the church plate takings.

  Elvis Costello

  Boys, Laughing, Church

  "The Dubliner". Interview with Alan Franks, March 2, 2002.

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• The Nobel Prize, so long regarded in our science as the highest reward a man's work can earn, must bring to its recipient a most solemn sense of his debt to his fellow scientists and those of the past.

  Edward Mills Purcell

  Past, Men, Long

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• A wedding was a strange ceremony, she thought, with all those formal words, those solemn vows made by one to another; whereas the real question that should be put to the two people involved was a very simple one. Are you happy with each other? was the only question that should be asked; to which they both should reply, preferably in unison, Yes.

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Wedding, Real, Simple

  Alexander McCall Smith (2011). “The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party”, p.127, Hachette UK

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• The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Taken, Mean, Ideas

  "Bend Sinister" by Vladimir Nabokov, (p. 6), 1963.

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• A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

  Charles Dickens

  Heart, Night, Cities

  A Tale of Two Cities bk. 1, ch. 3 (1859)

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• Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Country, Wisdom, Mistake

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.773, Library of Alexandria

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• I don't seem to get solemn about it, and some people might not understand. That's why I never talk about it. I think it's all here -- in the mountains and the desert. I don't think God is a softie, either. In the end, it's better if people are forced back into -- well -- into being right, before they're too far gone. I think your temple is your everyday living.

  Carole Lombard

  Thinking, People, Everyday

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

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• July 4th ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion.

  John Adams

  4th Of July, Declaration Of Independence, Deliverance

  Letter to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776

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• What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dullness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old sundials! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance.

  Charles Lamb

  Christian, Business, Communication

  Charles Lamb (1943). “A complete Elia: The essays of Elia, together with The last essays of Elia”

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• I desire before I leave the world, as my best legacy to my family,, my serious, solemn advice, to make choice of my God for their God. He has been my father's God, and the God of your Mother's predecessors. I solemnly charge you to make it your first care to seek after peace with God, and being reconciled, to make it your study to please God in all things.

  Robert Dabney

  Mother, Father, War

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• The political truths declared in that solemn manner acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government, and as they become incorporated with national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion.

  James Madison

  Passion, Character, Government

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening - no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air.

  Alexander Smith

  Morning, Fall, Autumn

  Alexander Smith (1914). “Dreamthorp”

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• I know a 'crime against nature' when I see one. It is usually a sign of crimes against nature that we cannot bear to see them at all, that we recoil and hide our eyes, and no one has ever cringed at the sight of a soybean factory. I also know phony arguments when I hear them--unbridled appetite passing itself off as altruism, and human arrogance in the guise of solemn 'duty.' We must, as C.S. Lewis advises, 'reject with detestation that covert propoganda for cruelty which tries to drive mercy out of the world by calling it names such as 'Humanitarianism' and 'Sentimentality.

  Matthew Scully

  Eye, Sight, Names

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