Solemn Quotes - Page 9

• Dear Habicht, / Such a solemn air of silence has descended between us that I almost feel as if I am committing a sacrilege when I break it now with some inconsequential babble... / What are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul...?

  Albert Einstein

  Air, Whales, Silence

  Letter to his friend Conrad Habicht, May 1905.

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• We must sometimes get away from the Authorized Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls. Early associations endear, but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity, the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed, and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame, or struck dumb with terror, or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adorations.

  C. S. Lewis

  Beautiful, Bible, Book

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• It is the Christmas time:
  And up and down 'twixt heaven and earth,
  In glorious grief and solemn mirth,
  The shining angels climb.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Christmas, Grief, Angel

  Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, “A Hymn For Christmas Morning”

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• In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 1948) in most solemn form, the dignity of a person is acknowledged to all human beings; and as a consequence there is proclaimed, as a fundamental right, the right of free movement in search for truth and in the attainment of moral good and of justice, and also the right to a dignified life.

  Pope John XXIII

  Truth, Rights, Justice

  'Pacem in Terris' (1963)

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• There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power.

  J. William Fulbright

  Self, Two, America

  J. William Fulbright (2011). “The Arrogance of Power”, p.274, Random House

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• Of government, at least in democratic states, it may be said briefly that it is an agency engaged wholesale, and as a matter of solemn duty, in the performance of acts which all self-respecting individuals refrain from as a matter of common decency.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Agency, Government

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• It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork.

  Mark Twain

  Death, Men, Meat

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.254, Courier Corporation

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• Once in Persia reigned a king
  Who upon his signet ring
  Graved a maxim true and wise,
  Which if held before the eyes
  Gave him counsel at a glance
  Fit for every change and chance.
  Solemn words, and these are they:
  "Even this shall pass away."

  Theodore Tilton

  Wise, Time, Kings

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• Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Death, Men, Soul

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• It is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon the summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of form and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little puff, leaving nothing behind but a memory - and sometimes not even that. I suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the night and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess that he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making.

  Mark Twain

  Summer, Time, Memories

  Mark Twain (2010). “Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”, p.152, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• [Ritual] dwells in an invisible reality and gives this reality a vocabulary, props, costume, gesture, scenery. Ritual makes things separate, sets them apart from ordinary affairs and thoughts. Rituals need not be solemn, but they are formalized, stylized, extraordinary, and artificial. In the name of ritual, we can do anything. We can do astonishing acts. In the end, ritual gives us assurance about the unification of things.

  Barbara Myerhoff

  Reality, Names, Vocabulary

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• But for us there are moments, O, how solemn, when destiny trembles in the balance and the preponderance of either scale is by our own choice.

  Mark Hopkins

  Destiny, Choices, Balance

  Mark Hopkins (1884). “Teachings and Counsels: Twenty Baccalaureate Sermons; with a Discourse on President Garfield”

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• Try to do ugly things so that you make them beautiful... The more delicate the thing is in nature the more one must look for the solemn note. Color in nature is never pretty, it's beautiful.

  Charles Webster Hawthorne

  Beauty, Beautiful, Color

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• The Millennium Declaration was a solemn pledge to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty.

  Kevin Watkins

  Children, Men, Fellow Man

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• It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of human ity.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Dedication, People, Causes

  Jawaharlal Nehru (1960). “India's Spokesman: From Speeches and Addresses”

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• O blessed Saviour, give me grace like Thee, to make Religion my first, and chiefest care, and devoutly to observe, all solemn times, and all holy Rites, which relate to Thy worship.

  Thomas Ken

  Blessed, Giving, Grace

  Thomas Ken, Esq. William HAWKINS (of the Middle Temple.), James Thomas ROUND (1838). “The Prose Works of ... T. K. ... To which are Added Some of His Letters (never Before Published) and a Short Account of His Life by W. Hawkins ... Collected by J. T. Round”, p.365

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• Would I describe a preacher, I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.

  William Cowper

  Simple, Men, Grace

  William Cowper (1851). “The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence”, p.556

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• Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, To the inward ear devout, Touched by light, with heavenly warning Your transporting chords ring out. Every leaf in every nook, Every wave in every brook, Chanting with a solemn voice Minds us of our better choice.

  John Keble

  Morning, Voice, Light

  John Keble (1829). “The Christian year, thoughts in verse for the Sundays and holydays throughout the year [by J. Keble].”, p.52

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• The groves were God's first temple. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them,--ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication.

  William C. Bryant

  Men, Silence, Sound

  William Cullen Bryant, “A Forest Hymn”

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• I congratulate you and my country on the singular favor of heaven in the peaceable and auspicious settlement of our government upon a Constitution formed by wisdom, and sanctified by the solemn choice of the people who are to live under it. May the Supreme ruler of the world be pleased to establish and perpetuate these new foundations of liberty and glory....Thank God, my country is saved and by the smile of Heaven I am a free and independant man.

  John Hancock

  Country, Men, People

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• It is a melancholy consideration that there should be several among us so hardened and deluded as to think an oath a proper subject for a jest; and to make this, which is one of the most solemn acts of religion, an occasion of mirth. Yet such is the depravation of our manners at present, that nothing is more frequent than to hear profligate men ridiculing, to the best of their abilities, these sacred pledges of their duty and allegiance; and endeavouring to be witty upon themselves, for daring to prevaricate with God and man.

  Joseph Addison

  Witty, Men, Thinking

  Joseph Addison (1837). “The Tatler. The Guardian. The Freeholder. The Whig-examiner. The lover. Dialogues upon the usefulness of ancient medals. Remarks on several parts of Italy, etc. The present state of the war. The late trial and conviction of Count Tariff. The evidences of the Christian religion. Essay on Virgil's Georgics. Poems on several occasions. Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Notes on some of the foregoing stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Poemata. Rosamond. Cato. The drummer”, p.181

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• I do here in the most solemn and bitter manner curse the Prime Minister of England [sic] for having cumulated all his other betrayals of the national interest and honour, by his last terrible exhibition of dishonour, weakness and gullibility. The depths of infamy which our accurst "love of peace" can lower us are unfathomable.

  Enoch Powell

  Betrayal, Weakness, Depth

  "Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell" by Simon Heffer, (p. 47), 1999.

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• The memories which peaceful country scenes call up, are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and hopes. Their gentle influence may teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of those we loved: may purify our thoughts, and bear down before it old enmity and hatred; but beneath all this, there lingers, in the least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness of having held such feelings long before, in some remote and distant time, which calls up solemn thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride and worldliness beneath it.

  Charles Dickens

  Country, Nature, Memories

  Charles Dickens (2016). “Oliver Twist”, p.199, Pan Macmillan

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• Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who listen had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears.

  Charles Lamb

  Reading, Needs, Ears

  Charles Lamb (1835). “Essays of Elia”, p.192

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• It is strange that there are times when I feel the stars are not at all solemn: they are secretly gay.

  Katherine Mansfield

  Stars, Gay, Strange

  Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.1092, Delphi Classics

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