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

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  632 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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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• 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

  18 Copy quote

• 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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• At first a small line of inconceivable splendour emerged on the horizon, which, quickly expanding, the sun appeared in all of his glory, unveiling the whole face of nature, vivifying every colour of the landscape, and sprinkling the dewy earth with glittering light.

  Ann Radcliffe

  Adventure, Light, Unveiling

  Ann Radcliffe (1820). “The romance of the forest, by the authoress of 'A Sicilian romance'.”, p.27

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• I have lived long enough to know that the evening glow of love has its own riches and splendour.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Love, Marriage, Long

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• The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate; those soft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises which he feels in privacy to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

  Samuel Johnson

  Home, Ambition, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In Eleven Volumes ...”, p.431

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• A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

  Samuel Johnson

  Fear, Book, Writing

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.13

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• Last comes the class of persons, of nervous organization and enfeebled vigour, whose sensual appetite craves highly seasoned dishes, men of a hectic, over-stimulated constitution. Their eyes almost invariably hanker after that most irritating and morbid of colours, with its artificial splendours and feverish acrid gleams,-orange.

  Joris-Karl Huysmans

  Eye, Men, Class

  Joris-Karl Huysmans (2015). “Against the Grain: (À rebours)”, p.14, BoD – Books on Demand

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• How much we need, in the church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendour of truth, witnesses of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ!

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Joy, Church, Needs

  Sermon of Benedict XVI, w2.vatican.va. September 18, 2010.

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• Tis a morning pure and sweet, And a dewy splendour falls On the little flower that clings To the turrets and the walls; 'Tis a morning pure and sweet, And the light and shadow fleet; She is walking in the meadow, And the woodland echo rings; In a moment we shall meet; She is singing in the meadow, And the rivulet at her feet Ripples on in light and shadow To the ballad that she sings.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Sweet, Morning, Wall

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)”, p.898, Delphi Classics

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• We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

  William Wordsworth

  Sympathy, Grief, Condolences

  'Ode. Intimations of Immortality' (1807) st. 10

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• Pleased be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom you give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendours and bears likeness of you, Most High One.

  Francis of Assisi

  Beautiful, Brother, Light

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• Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and show him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams.

  James G. Frazer

  Dream, Strong, Powerful

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• Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.

  Henry Beston

  Animal, Vegetarian Diet, Vegetarianism

  Henry Beston, Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth (2001). “The Best of Beston: A Selection from the Natural World of Henry Beston from Cape Cod to the St. Lawrence”, p.18, David R. Godine Publisher

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