Splendour Quotes - Page 2

• Beauty is necessarily shrouded in mystery--which is part of its splendour.

  Thomas Dubay

  Mystery

  Thomas Dubay (1999). “The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet”, p.42, Ignatius Press

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• At a time when it's possible for thirty people to stand on the top of Everest in one day, Antarctica still remains a remote, lonely and desolate continent. A place where it's possible to see the splendours and immensities of the natural world at its most dramatic and, what's more, witness them almost exactly as they were, long, long before human beings ever arrived on the surface of this planet. Long may it remain so.

  David Attenborough

  Lonely, Long, People

  "Life in the Freezer". Documentary, www.imdb.com. (1993 - ).

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• That I grow sour, who only lack delight; That I descend to sneer, who only grieve: That from my depth I should contemn your height; That with my blame my mockery you receive; Huntress and splendour of the woodland night, Diana of this world, do not believe.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Believe, Night, Grieving

  Hilaire Belloc (1970). “Complete verse [of] H. Belloc: including Sonnets and verse, Cautionary verses, The modern traveller, etc”

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• The images of twenty of the most illustrious families the Manlii, the Quinctii, and other names of equal splendour were carried before it [the bier of Junia]. Those of Brutus and Cassius were not displayed; but for that very reason they shone with pre-eminent lustre.

  Tacitus

  Names, Twenties, Cassius

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• The beauteous dragonfly's dancing By the waves of the rivulet glancing; She dances here and she dances there, The glimmering, glittering flutterer fair. Full many a beetle with loud applause Admires her dress of azure gauze, Admires her body's bright splendour, And also her figure so slender...

  Heinrich Heine

  Dancing, Dresses, Dragonflies

  Heinrich Heine (1866). “The Poems of Heine: Complete”, p.520

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• One often reads that the 1950s was the golden age of Cuban music, but it was really one long phase, from 1937 to 1958, each year with its own splendour.

  Ned Sublette

  Years, Long, Age

  Ned Sublette (2007). “Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo”, p.433, Chicago Review Press

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• There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son.

  Aleister Crowley

  Son, Names, Midnight

  Aleister Crowley (2016). “The Book of the Law”, p.1, Public Lex

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• And one of the things I find most moving is the way people with infirmities manage to embrace Life, and from the cool flowers by the wayside reach conclusions about the vast splendour of its great gardens. They can, if their souls' strings are finely tuned, arrive with much less effort at the feeling of eternity; for everything we do, they may dream. And precisely where our deeds end, theirs begin to bear fruit.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Dream, Flower, Moving

  Rainer Maria Rilke (1998). “Diaries of a Young Poet”, p.46, W. W. Norton & Company

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• O trees of life, O when are you wintering?We are not unified. We have no instinctslike those of migratory birds. Useless, and late,we force ourselves, suddenly, onto the wind,and fall down to an indifferent lake.We realise flowering and fading together.And somewhere lions still roam. Never knowing,as long as they have their splendour, of any weakness.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Fall, Wind, Knowing

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• Very great charm of shadow and light is to be found in the faces of those who sit in the doors of dark houses. The eye of the spectator sees that part of the face which is in shadow lost in the darkness of the house, and that part of the face which is lit draws its brilliancy from the splendour of the sky. From this intensification of light and shade the face gains greatly in relief and beauty by showing the subtlest shadows in the light part and the subtlest lights in the dark part.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Nature, Travel, Eye

  Leonardo da Vinci (2008). “Notebooks”, p.128, OUP Oxford

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• In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Sacrifice, Self, Abuse

  "Ficciones". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 1944.

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• The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the most imposing personages of the a splendid procession; it is by them that the mob are influenced; it is they who the inspectors cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second hand carriages; no one cares for them or asks about them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

  Walter Bagehot

  Cheer, Real, Hands

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• Did I ever tell you,’ said Lymond pausing on the afterthought, on his way to the flap, ‘that that aunt of mine once hatched an egg?’ He paused, deep in thought, and walked slowly to the door before turning again. His lordship of Aubigny, staring after the vanishing form of his brother, received the full splendour of Lymond’s smile. ‘It was a cuckoo,’ said Francis Crawford prosaically, and followed Lennox out.

  Dorothy Dunnett

  Brother, Aunt, Doors

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• Why, sir," said he, looking about him, "what splendour I see: gold lace, breeches, cocked hats. Allow me to recommend a sandwich. And would you be contemplating an attack, at all?" "It had crossed my mind, I must admit," said Jack. "Indeed, I may go so far as to say, that I am afraid a conflict is now virtually inevitable. Did you notice we have cleared for action?

  Patrick O'Brian

  Mind, Gold, Sandwiches

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• Life, that can shower you with so much splendour, is unremittingly cruel to those who have given up.

  Stephen Fry

  Given, Showers, Given Up

  Stephen Fry (2011). “Moab Is My Washpot”, p.337, Soho Press

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• The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom-- Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Spring, Dark, Secret

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.278, Delphi Classics

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• Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--- No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever---or else swoon in death.

  John Keats

  Sweet, Art, Stars

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

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• That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

  William Wordsworth

  Strength, Sympathy, Time

  William Wordsworth, “Ode On Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood”

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• You and I are like the first two people on earth who at the beginning of the world had nothing to cover themselves with - at the end of it, you and I are just as stripped and homeless. And you and I are the last remembrance of all that immeasurable greatness which has been created in all the thousands of years between their time and ours, and it is in memory of all that vanished splendour that we live and love and weep and cling to one another.

  Boris Pasternak

  Memories, Greatness, Years

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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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• 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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• And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Kings, Men, Long

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Lord of the Rings: One Volume”, p.710, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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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• The dragon is withered, His bones are now crumbled; His armour is shivered, His splendour is humbled! Though sword shall be rusted, And throne and crown perish With strength that men trusted And wealth that they cherish, Here grass is still growing, And leaves are yet swinging, The white water flowing, And elves are yet singing Come! Tra-la-la-lally! Come back to the valley!

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Men, Dragons, White

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.120, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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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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