Solemnity Quotes

“No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.”
― Dave Barry

“It is easy to be solemn, it is so hard to be frivolous.”
― G K Chesterton

“In the end, only God can see the heart of an individual and distinguish the difference between legalistic deadweight and the passion of holy solemnity.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“And the men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths, the men with the eyes of puff adders, took up their load of machine and tube, their case of liquid melancholy and the slow dark sludge of nameless stuff, and strolled out the door.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)”
― Anonymous

“There has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and women. It is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the chains are broken—until dungeons are not regarded as temples. Wait until solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom—until mental cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. Wait until the living are considered the equals of the dead—until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until what we know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. Wait until teachers take the place of preachers—until followers become investigators. Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.

In this creed there will be but one word—Liberty.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child

“God is not a God of confusion, although at times one's judgment, for a period, may become clouded in the mi(d)st of one's growth process. I stopped fooling myself into thinking that Christ is always for the cool kids and never for those upright and uptight religious people everybody hates.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Often, during times when I am in a state of absolute bliss and gratitude, those are the times that people will ask me, “Are you happy or are you sad?” It’s funny, because when you are happy in a way that most people are happy in, that is, when you are jumping up and down and laughing and smiling and giggling, people will recognize that as happiness. But when you go beyond that state and on into the state of blissfulness— nirvana— only a very few number of people are going to be able to recognize and understand that. Why? Because only very few people have gone beyond the level of obvious happiness, to experience actual nirvaana. Nirvana is what I describe as being in a state of worship; you see, you go beyond just feeling happy and grateful, and you enter into a state of mind that allows you to worship what you have been given or what you have attained or achieved, or whatever circumstance you are in that is making you happy. You stop and you worship the person, the place, the thing, the feeling. I’m easily flung into that state, so, I often find it strange that I can be in an absolute state of bliss, meanwhile, the other person can be asking me if I am either happy or sad. But I am worshipping.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing?”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“His words cost him so much, she thought, not like hers that just came dancing out of the air and went back into it. He spoke from his marrow. It made what he said a solemn compliment, which she accepted gratefully...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Four Ways to Forgiveness

“One moment they were in a Brandenyard street, the next running by wicket-fenced fields where stupidly dignified goats with great, flopping ears and fat, overlong noses stared at them solemnly.”
― D.M. Cornish, Factotum

“Everybody make words,' he continued. 'Everybody write things down. Children in school do lessons in my books. Teachers put grades in my books. Love letters sent in envelopes I sell. Ledgers for accountants, pads for shopping lists, agendas for planning week. Everything in here important to life, and that make me happy, give honour to my life.'
The man delivered his little speech with such solemnity, such a grave sense of purpose and commitment, I confess that I felt moved. What kind of stationery store owner was this, I wondered, who expounded to his customers on the metaphysics of paper, who saw himself as serving an essential role in the myriad affairs of humanity? There was something comical about it, I suppose, but as I listened to him talk, it didn't occur to me to laugh.”
― Paul Auster

“The Estate of Solemnity

By right, it reigns in its places- in long beards
Of spanish moss hanging from a live oak
On a windless evening, and in the chill of new
Icicles rigidly, imperceptibly lengthening. Cavern
Stalagmites are almost majestic with solemnity.

The black morel and the tree ear mushroom
Are solemn without grief, solemn without joy,
Solemn without reverence, without a single
Flicker of green or lift of a wing or cry.

But the most solemn, most stalwart, the least
Wavering are the tors and crags, the towering desert
Spires and carved pinnacles, the devoted ascents
And sharp, raw rims of boulders and bluffs, the maw
Of a distant cave I saw yesterday and the day before,
And the grave echo there of the day and the before.

Mystics and divines have always sought the pure,
White-rock serenity of the silent, solemn moon
Bound in its flight alone far above the peaks, far
Above the earth, surrounded there forever by bevies
Of giddy stars, all asparkling, all aglow.”
― Pattiann Rogers, Quickening Fields