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Somber Quotes

Browse 73 quotes about Somber.

Somber Quotes

“I only wrote prose before I met you. My musings were superfluous and serious as well. But now the words dance with me. I sing with them and we create poetry.”

LoveWritingPoetryLiteratureLove QuotesCreativeBooksSeriousPoetLettersDanceWordsPoetry QuotesAuthorPoemsProseWriterMuseLoverLovingCreateCreative WritingWriteSolemnWriting QuotesKamandKojouriKamand KojouriIn LoveLove PoemsNovelsSingSuperfluousMusingsVerseNovelistSomberWriting PoemsMetWrote
Author:Kamand Kojouri
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“All through the crowd were men in uniform, sailors from the great fleet anchored in the Hudson, soldiers with divisional insignia from Massachusetts to California, wanting fearfully to be noticed, and finding the great city thoroughly fed up with soldiers unless they were nicely massed into pretty formations and uncomfortable under the weight of a pack and rifle. Through this medley Dean and Gordon wandered; the former interested, made alert by the display of humanity at its frothiest and gaudiest; the latter reminded of how often he had been one of the crown, tired, casually fed, overworked, and dissipated. To Dean the struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to Gordon it was dismal, meaningless, endless.”

SoldiersSomberWar TimeClass Division
Book:May Day
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“The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians-when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.”

SelfChristianJoyReligionDiesChristianityThousandArgumentCertaintyStrongestRighteousComplacentSelf RighteousCompletenessConsecrationSomber
Book:Lifestyle Evangelism: Learning to Open Your Life to Those Around You
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“The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth. There was no moon. The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void. As the stars came nearer, the sky retreated deeper and deeper into the night color. The layers of the Border Range, indistinguishable one from another, cast their heaviness at the skirt of the starry sky in a blackness grave and somber enough to communicate their mass. The whole of the night scene came together in a clear, tranquil harmony.”

IfsEnoughWholeEarthTogetherNightFallStarsSoundClearSkyLandColorSceneMoonMassHarmonyCastsCommunicateDeeperGravesSnowBeing TrueRangeBordersVoidLayersSkirtsBlacknessTranquilFreezingHeavinessSomberSwiftnessStarry Sky
Book:Snow Country
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“The environmental crisis is somber evidence of an insidious fraud hidden in the vaunted productivity and wealth of modern, technology-based society. This wealth has been gained by rapid short-term exploitation of the environmental system, but it has blindly accumulated a debt to nature-a debt so large and so pervasive that in the next generation it may, if unpaid, wipe out most of the wealth it has gained us.”

IfsMayHas BeensNextTermWealthTechnologyGenerationsModernEvidenceCrisisEnvironmentalDebtProductivityFraudExploitationRapidsNext GenerationShort TermWipeInsidiousSomberModern TechnologyEnvironmental Crisis
Author:Barry Commoner
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“To express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of Kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of light tone against a somber background; to express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance.”

TwoSoulLightStarsColorExpressionLoversBackgroundsMysteriousToneOppositionSunsetVibrationsBrowsRadianceKindredEagernessComplementarySomberMinglingTwo LoversComplementary Colors
Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“I heard the bells from the future churches, the children playing and laughing in the schoolyards [...] and here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. For, by believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired, whatever we have not irrigated with our blood to such a degree that it becomes strong enough to stride across the somber threshold of nonexistence.”

BelieveChildrenDoeStillsEnoughStrongChurchLaughingCuttingHeardTreeBloodDegreesBranchesReach OutBellsStrong EnoughThresholdStrideFloweringChildren PlayingSomberAlmonds
Author:Nikos Kazantzakis
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“God in his harmony has equal ends For cedar that resists and reed that bends; For good it is a woman sometimes rules, Holds in her hand the power, and manners, schools, And laws, and mind; succeeding master proud, With gentle voice and smiles she leads the crowd, The somber human troop.”

MindHumansEndsSometimesHandsSchoolLawWomenVoiceMastersProudSucceedEqualHarmonyCrowdsAppreciationMannersGentleReedsSomberCedars
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)
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“I was happy as a child with my toys in my nursery. I been happier every year since I became a man. But this interlude of school makes a somber grey patch upon the chart of my journey. It was a unending spell of worries that did not then seem petty, and of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction and purposeless monotony.”

MenYearsChildrenSeemsSchoolWorryJourneySpellsToysToilGreyPettyRestrictionDiscomfortPatchesNurseryUnendingMonotonyMy JourneyFruitionSomber
Book:My Early Life: 1874-1904
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“Every man is occasionally visited by the suspicion that the planet on which he is riding is not really going anywhere; that the Force which controls its measured eccentricities hasn't got anything special in mind. If he broods on this somber theme long enough he gets the doleful idea that the laughing children on a merry-go-round or the thin, fine hands of a lady's watch are revolving more purposely than he is.”

IfsMenMindChildrenLongIdeasEnoughHandsPurposeForceWatchesLaughingSpecialPlanetsFineRoundsEvery ManThemeRidingSuspicionMerryEccentricityRevolvingSomberMerry Go RoundDoleful
Book:Writings and Drawings
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“A lot of times we associate Greenpeace and climate change and shrinking polar caps with heavy-handed, weighty material. It's somber stuff. But with Funny Or Die we thought we could put an interesting take on it. Make it a little more palatable, especially for young people who tune into the website.”

PeopleLittlesYoungDiesStuffInterestingMaterialsClimateClimate ChangeHeavyTunesAssociatesWebsiteCapsShrinkingSomberGreenpeaceFunny Or Die
Author:Alexander Skarsgard
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“If our spiritual past is somber and painful, let us try to simplify it, by acquiring true dedications that will assist us through the harsh climb of redemption. If we do not, today, have a determined bond with the wealth of injustice, we had it yesterday, and it becomes indispensable that we take advantage of time for our own individual readjustment before the Divine Justice.”

IfsTryingTodayPastSpiritualIndividualWealthJusticeDivineAdvantageInjusticePainfulDeterminedYesterdayRedemptionClimbsDedicationHarshIndispensableSimplifySomberDivine Justice
Author:Chico Xavier
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“Traditional spirituality often made pleasure, joy, good feelings. the things to overcome. It said you couldn't just indulge in your desires; that would be selfish. Anyone who has been in a spiritual community recognizes the dangers of this kind of joyless spirituality, where everything is somber and heavy and serious. We recognize that as kind of a trap, a false path.”

KindFeelingsSpiritualJoyDesireSpiritualityCommunityPleasurePathDangerSeriousOvercomingSelfishIndulgeBeing SelfishSomber
Author:Charles Eisenstein
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“For a while I used to listen to those whispers about babies costing you books, and Cyril Connolly's loathsome quote that "There is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall." But it's rubbish. Absolute rubbish. A huge amount of your work is done when you're not at your desk. Knotty problems that you need your unconscious to solve. So it can be helpful to walk away and focus on other things and it can be helpful to be a bit harassed in your daily life, to be hungry for time to write.”

WritingArtBookDoneProblemEnemyFocusBabyHungryUnconsciousHelpfulDaily LifeGood ArtSomber
Author:Maggie O'Farrell
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“Most people are surprised when they hear my somber figures: we know of 2 million species of plants, animals and microorganisms, and we can give them each a scientific name and a diagnostic description. We know, perhaps generously, more than just a little bit of the anatomy in no more than 10 percent. We have done thorough studies in fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent. And the total number of species on Earth is unknown to the nearest order of magnitude.”

PeopleGivingDoneEarthAnimalStudyPlantThoroughAnatomySomber
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.”

MenWayFirstsEndsSometimesCharacterBornMy OwnCitiesRecordsFateDoorsStyleTaughtInnocentChicagoDisguiseKnucklesSomber
Author:Saul Bellow
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“I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything. "Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste." "Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.”

MadeSaidI CanHelpingHandsBigsEyeCareRunningFunVoiceDarkHeardStupidSeriousTvsJokesCirclesHealHeyRanAdsHer EyesVodkaSobbingToothpasteSomberEvergreensDowningPerms
Book:Dreamland
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“I want you cool and regal, earthy and impertinent, spoiling for a fight and abashed at your own temper. I want you flushed with exertion and rosy with sleep. I want you teasing and provocative, somber and thoughtful. I want every emotion, every mood, every year in a lifetime to come. I want you beside me, to encourage and argue with me, to help me and let me help you. I want to be your champion and lover, your mentor and student.”

WantLoveYearsHelpingAgeFightingSleepEmotionStudentsLoversLet MeLifetimeArguingMoodChampionThoughtfulHelp MeTemperMentorI Want YouTeaseProvocativeExertionRosySomberRegal
Author:Connie Brockway
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“Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber as a word was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.”

BeautifulSoundNew YorkFitSummerLovelyAfternoonSaturdayBrooklynSerenePrairieSomberSaturday AfternoonBrooklyn New YorkWilliamsburg
Book:A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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