Splendour Quotes

• Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.

  Robert Browning

  'A Death in the Desert' (1864) l. 59

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• If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendour of beauty of with which I was in love would one day flood back into my heart, there to ignite a flame that would torture me without end, how gladly would I have put out the light in my eyes.

  Michelangelo

  Life And Love, Heart, Eye

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• Though nothing can bring back the hour
  Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.

  William Wordsworth

  Sympathy, Flower, Condolences

  "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" l. 177 (1807)

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• A little light, like a rushlight / to lead back to splendour.

  Ezra Pound

  Light, Littles

  Ezra Pound (1996). “The Cantos of Ezra Pound”, p.817, New Directions Publishing

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• Beauty, the splendour of truth, is a gracious presence when the imagination contemplates intensely the truth of its own being or the visible world, and the spirit which proceeds out of truth and beauty is the holy spirit of joy. These are realities and these alone give and sustain life.

  James Joyce

  Reality, Giving, Imagination

  James Joyce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of James Joyce (Illustrated)”, p.2219, Delphi Classics

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• Luxury starts where functionality ends and where the true value is personal and so has no price or reason.

  Marcel Wanders

  Luxury, Design, Opulence

  81 Copy quote

• Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.

  R. S. Thomas

  Dream, Sweet, Fall

  "Neb". Book by R. S. Thomas, 1985.

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• Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
  Who gazest ever true and tender
  On the sun's revolving splendour.

  Pedro Calderon de la Barca

  Light, Sunflower, Enchanted

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• The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendour that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach.

  Ayn Rand

  New York, Pyramids, Skylines

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• The outer world, with all its phenomena, is filled with divine splendour, but we must have experienced the divine within ourselves, before we can discover it in our environment

  Rudolf Steiner

  World, Environment, Divine

  Rudolf Steiner (1937). “Knowledge of the higher worlds and its attainment”

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• A landscape painting is essentially emotional in origin. It exists as a record of an effect in nature whose splendour has moved a human heart, and according as it is well or ill done it moves the hearts of others.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Moving, Heart, Emotional

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• The creatures with whom we share the planet and whom, in our arrogance, we wrongly patronize for being lesser forms, they are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the Earth.

  Henry Beston

  Sea, Fishing, Rivers

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• Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
  From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
  There is an inmost centre in us all,
  Where truth abides in fulness; and around,
  Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
  This perfect, clear perception-which is truth.
  A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
  Binds it, and makes all error: and to know
  Rather consists in opening out a way
  Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
  Than in effecting entry for a light
  Supposed to be without.

  Robert Browning

  Wall, Believe, Errors

  Robert Browning (1830). “An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry”, p.35

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• Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite.

  John Keats

  Art, Stars, Night

  'Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art' (1819)

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• Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch.

  Walter Pater

  Attitude, Sleep, Effort

  Walter Pater (2013). “The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry”, p.154, Courier Corporation

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• When it passes towards the east, the sun begins to have less effect upon it, and a thin line on the edge of its bright side emits its splendour towards the earth.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Aunt, East, Earth

  Marcus VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Joseph GWILT (1826). “The Architecture of M. Vitruvius Pollio in Ten Books, Translated from the Latin by J. Gwilt”, p.274

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• There is no real need for decorations when throwing a barbecue party - let the summer garden, in all its vibrant and luscious splendour, speak for itself.

  Pippa Middleton

  Summer, Real, Party

  "Pippa Middleton's Book On Partying Is Not Very Good" by Christopher Howse, www.businessinsider.com. November 2, 2012.

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• To be under pressure is inescapable. Pressure takes place through all the world; war, siege, the worries of state. We all know men who grumble under these pressures and complain. They are cowards. They lack splendour. But there is another sort of man who is under the same pressure but does not complain, for it is the friction which polishes him. It is the pressure which refines and makes him noble

  Saint Augustine

  War, Men, Worry

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• The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.

  Peter Wessel Zapffe

  Mind, Tragedy, Mutation

  54 Copy quote

• All that may be known of God for our salvation, especially his wisdom, love, goodness, grace and mercy on which the life of our souls depends, are represented to us in all their splendour in and through Christ. No wonder then that Christ is glorious in the eyes of believers!

  John Owen

  Eye, Grace And Mercy, Soul

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• I have seen the face of Jesus,      Tell me not of aught beside, I have heard the voice of Jesus,      All my soul is satisfied. All around is earthly splendour      Earthly scenes lie fair and bright. But mine eyes no longer see them,      For the glory of that light. Light that knows no cloud, no waning,      Light wherein I see His face, All His love’s uncounted treasures,      All the riches of His grace.

  J. Oswald Sanders

  Jesus, Lying, Eye

  J. Oswald Sanders (2009). “The Incomparable Christ”, p.16, Moody Publishers

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• A splendour of miscellaneous spirits.

  John Ruskin

  Venice, Spirit, Miscellaneous

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• There is will in the thought, there is none in the dream. The dream, which is completely spontaneous, takes and keeps, even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our mind. Nothing springs more directly and more sincerely from the very bottom of our souls than our unreflected and indefinite aspirations towards the splendours of destiny.

  Victor Hugo

  Dream, Spring, Destiny

  Victor Hugo (1994). “Les Miserables Volume One”, p.464, Wordsworth Editions

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• Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured; the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East.

  Edward Gibbon

  Fashion, Art, Luxury

  Edward Gibbon (1860). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.174

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• Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman empire, the labour of an industrious and ingenious people was variously, but incessantly employed, in the service of the rich. In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture, the favourites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency, of elegance, and of splendour, whatever could soothe their pride or gratify their sensuality.

  Edward Gibbon

  Art, Pride, Agriculture

  Edward Gibbon (1841). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1: With Maps”, p.33

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