Solemnity Quotes

• Solemnity is a device of the body to hide the faults of the mind.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Mind, Body, Faults

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• For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone.

  Virginia Woolf

  Thinking, Solitude, Needs

  Virginia Woolf (2016). “To the Lighthouse”, p.58, Tyché

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• O, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate man, "Behold! thou hast one more chance! Strive for immortal glory!

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Motivational, Men, New Day

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Beecher STOWE (2016). “Collected Works (Complete and Illustrated Editions: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Queer Little Folks, The Chimney-Corner, ...)”, p.346, Harriet Beecher Stowe

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• It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.

  Victor Hugo

  Sleep, Night, Sky

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• Let the blue sky overhead, The green earth on which ye tread, All that must eternal be Witness the solemnity.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Blue, Sky, Earth

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley; Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments”, p.234

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• Everything has two sides - the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn.

  Olive Schreiner

  Reality, Two Sides, Ridiculous

  Olive Schreiner (2009). “The Story of an African Farm”, p.276, The Floating Press

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• Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Degrees, Found, Ability

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.7, University of Georgia Press

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• Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearances.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Death, Passion, Light

  "The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard" edited and translated by Alexander Dru, 1959.

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• Behold! thou hast one more chance! Strive for immortal glory!

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Each New Day, Chance, Glory

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Beecher STOWE (2016). “Collected Works (Complete and Illustrated Editions: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Queer Little Folks, The Chimney-Corner, ...)”, p.346, Harriet Beecher Stowe

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• Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

  Frederick Douglass

  Religious, Prayer, Greatness

  What to the Slave is the 4th of July?, delivered 4 July 1852

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• I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which I have now been dedicated with such solemnity.

  Queen Elizabeth II

  Ocean, Support, Tasks

  Queen Elizabeth II's Speech on her Coronation Day, www.royal.uk. June 2, 1953.

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• Caution: These verses may be hazardous to your solemnity.

  Russell Baker

  May, Caution, Verses

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• Gloom and solemnity are entirely out of place in even the most rigorous study of an art originally intended to make glad the heart of man.

  Ezra Pound

  Art, Men, Study

  Ezra Pound, Michael Dirda (2010). “ABC of Reading”, p.2, New Directions Publishing

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• There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Fear, Educational, Air

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer - Studies in Pessimism (illustrated)”, p.47, Full Moon Publications

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• A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mistake, Creativity, Science

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.110

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• Solemnity is the shield of idiots

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Stupidity, Shields, Idiot

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• We must bear in recollection that the sentiment of the picture is that of solemnity, not gaiety & nothing garish, but the contrary - yet it must be bright, clear, alive fresh, and all the front seen.

  John Constable

  Bears, Alive, Clear

  John Constable (1966). “John Constable's Correspondence”

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• A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Owl, Serious

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.2301, Simon and Schuster

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• One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Writing, Done, Authority

  "The Rolling Stones". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1952.

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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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• Beauty imposes reverence in the Spring, Grave as the urge within the honeybuds, It wounds us as we sing. Beauty is joy that stays not overlong. Clad in the magic of sincerities, It rides up in a song. Beauty imposes chastenings on the heart, Grave as the birds in last solemnities Assembling to depart.

  Shaw Neilson

  Beauty, Song, Spring

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• He has no other recommendation, save an assumed and crafty solemnity of demeanour.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Recommendations, Crafty

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• Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities.

  William Shakespeare

  Dream, Moon, Night

  William Shakespeare, Phill Evans (2009). “A Midsummer Night's Dream: In Full Colour, Cartoon, Illustrated Format”, p.1, Shakespeare Comic Books

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• From our sorrow we might seek out the sweetness and the good that is often associated with and peculiar to our challenge. We can seek out those memorable moments that are frequently hidden by the pain and agony. We can find peace in extending ourselves to others, using our own experiences to provide hope and comfort. And we can always remember with great solemnity and gratitude Him who suffered most to make it all right for us. And by so doing we can be strengthened to bear our burdens in peace. And then, the 'works of God' might be manifest.

  Richard C. Edgley

  Gratitude, Pain, Memorable

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• The games of the ancient Greeks were, in their original institutions, religious solemnities.

  Dorothea Brande

  Religious, Games, Greek

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