Pronouncement Quotes & Sayings

The Herald Tribune headed the story, "PRESIDENT SAYS PRAYER IS PART OF DEMOCRACY." The implication in such a pronouncement, emanating from the seat of government, is that religious faith is a condition, or even a precondition, of the democratic life. — E.B. White

Rachel delivered it like an official pronouncement. Like she was one of the fairies gifting Sleeping Beauty's christening: Beauty. Intelligence. Heterosexual. — Josh Lanyon

A man who would contract the mumps,' declared Cecilia, 'would do anything!' Lady Ombersley saw nothing unreasonable in this pronouncement, nor was she surprised that his lordship's unromantic behaviour had given Cecilia a distaste for him. She — Georgette Heyer

If all, or the majority of humanity, end up in heaven, then Jesus made a mistake in his pronouncement that only a few will enter through the "narrow gate" into heaven. And if Jesus was wrong about this, then one could assume that he may have been wrong about a number of other issues of which he spoke. — Robert Jeffress

We blame Walt Disney for goldenrod's undeserved bad name. Despite Sneezy's pronouncement, plants such as goldenrod with heavy, insect-carried pollen rarely cause allergic reaction. — Janet Macunovich

The economy - and the need to keep it strong and growing - has somehow become the most important aspect of modern life. Nothing else is allowed to rank higher. The economy is suffering; the economy is improving; the economy is stable or unstable - you'd think it was a patient on life support in an intensive-care unit from the way we anxiously await the next pronouncement on its health. But what we call the economy is nothing more than people producing, consuming and exchanging things and services. — David Suzuki

His Pronouncement is Your Announcement -I will make thy name great — Ikechukwu Joseph

I dozed, jolting occasionally at the driver's loud pronouncement of upcoming stops. At this early hour the bus hummed along quietly with few passengers, so the stops were infrequent. In the hazy surrealism of predawn, there really was not much to see
what I could make out was mainly countryside, though not what I would call quaint, and certainly no Shakespearean cottages or fairy folk peeping from the trees. — Carolyn Weber

The authors of the four passages share a number of practices: an insistence on fresh wording and concrete imagery over familiar verbiage and abstract summary; an attention to the readers' vantage point and the target of their gaze; the judicious placement of an uncommon word or idiom against a backdrop of simple nouns and verbs; the use of parallel syntax; the occasional planned surprise; the presentation of a telling detail that obviates an explicit pronouncement; the use of meter and sound that resonate with the meaning and mood.
The authors also share an attitude: they do not hide the passion and relish that drive them to tell us about their subjects. They write as if they have something important to say. But no, that doesn't capture it. They write as if they have something important to show. And that, we shall see, is a key ingredient in the sense of style. — Steven Pinker

There are some geologists involved with prospecting for oil and other hidden resources who can pick up a rock and say, 'Yes, there's oil under there.' A geologist who has been studying those kinds of rocks for 10 or 20 years is able to make that pronouncement. — Christopher Alexander

Pronouncement of experts to the effect that something cannot be done has always irritated me. — Leo Szilard

Major Chhetri's pronouncement when we'd first arrived in Nepal came echoing back: Things that start in the rain end well. — Jane Wilson-Howarth

Reacting to Jesus' pronouncement that remarriage after divorce is adultery, his disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry" (Mt 19:10). From the first moment of its declaration, the teaching Jesus propounded as the will of God was deeply distressing, even to men of good will. Subsequent centuries have shown no slackening in the energy and ingenuity devoted to weakening or nullifying the force of this teaching, and as long as it is expedient to circumvent the doctrine, there will be attempts to explain away its scriptural anchoring. But the doctrine is given as absolute in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and even Paul goes out of his way to insist that, as a messenger of the teaching and not its author, he is not to blame for its rigor: "To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord" (1 Cor 7:10). There can be no serious doubt that the teaching is dominical. — Robert Dodaro

A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Some people don't really know enough to make a pronouncement of doom on a human being. — Norman Cousins

Holocaust Museum said ISIS has carried out genocide against the Yazidis, but its investigation did not cover Christian persecution. Now there's concern the U.S. State Department might do the same, limiting any genocide pronouncement to Yazidis without mentioning Christians. — Tom Gjelten

Even in my time, we knew that men were not in
charge. Oh, they might bluster as if they were. But when it came down to it, we women bore much of the influence. Often, my father would make some grand pronouncement in the evening. And the next morning, he had changed his mind. After a while, I realized that it was my mother who had changed it, quietly, in the night. — Alex Flinn

I think I can stand up, though!" He demonstrated the questionable optimism of this pronouncement by falling on his face. — Scott Lynch

To go there with her and explain in greatest detail the goings-on, to suggest to her that perhaps the sickness she experiences, the nauseating turn, is her own internal structure cramped by the rise of a desire heretofore unknown. I would also suggest that the impulse to 'lose one's lunch,' to spill such rich and fine fare as the 3 or 4 peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches consumed under the elm by the canoe pond only an hour before, is not so much a mark of aversion as a pronouncement of attraction, the making room for greater possibility. — A.M. Homes

Scientists by nature tend to be cautious in anything they say about religion, even when expressing skepticism. The distinguished physiologist Anton (Ajax) J. Carlson, when asked what he thought of the 1950 ex cathedra (that is, infallible) pronouncement by Pius XII that the Virgin Mary ascended bodily into heaven, is reported to have responded that he couldn't be sure because he wasn't there, but of one thing he was certain, that she passed out at thirty thousand feet. — Edward O. Wilson

What has interested me all along is not the pronouncement of meaning but pointing toward the way meaning is formed. — Douglas Huebler

Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves. — Nicolaus Copernicus

This story of shifting and conflicting authorities, evolving alliances and feuds, and debate over the essence of Christian identity means that if we continue to speak of an evangelical mind - if we continue to use the word evangelical at all, and we will - we must allow room for diversity and internal contradiction, for those who love the label and those who hate it. We must recognize that American evangelicalism owes more to its fractures and clashes, its anxieties and doubts, than to any political pronouncement or point of doctrine. — Molly Worthen

The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie. [Referring to pronouncement by Justice Anthony Kennedy in Obergefell v. Hodges: "The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity."] — Antonin Scalia

Quinn and Lisa

He pulled her to her feet. "Let's go home."
"Sure."
"Want to ride double?"
"On your horse?"
"I promise Thunder will be on his best behavior."
"Quinn, he has no manners. He tried to take a nip out of my hat yesterday."
He groaned. "He didn't."
She held it out. "Look at it. You can see the teeth marks."
"Lizzy, you promised not to make a pet out of my horse."
"What?"
"He's falling in love with you."
She burst out laughing at his grim pronouncement.
"I'm serious," Quinn insisted. "What have you been feeding him?"
"I wasn't supposed to?"
"Lizzy."
"Sugar cubes. He likes them."
"You're hopeless, you know that?"
"I didn't mean to."
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Sure you didn't. Please remember the cattle are sold as beef. This is a working ranch."
"Quinn-" she couldn't resist-"even the pretty little ones? — Dee Henderson

What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement. — Benjamin Cardozo

The main propoganda trick of supporters of the allegedly "progressive" policy of government control is to blame capitalism for all that is unsatisfactory in present-day conditions and to extol the blessings of socialism. They have never attempted to prove their fallacious dogmas, all they did was to call their adversaries names and cast suspicion upon their motives. And, unfortunately, the average citizen cannot see through these stratagems. The liars must be afraid of the truth and are therefore driven to suppress its pronouncement. — Ludwig Von Mises

However, this court is constrained by law, and under the law, I can only conclude that the Government has not violated FOIA by refusing to turn over the documents sought in the FOIA requests, and so cannot be compelled by this court of law to explain in detail the reasons why its actions do not violate the Constitution and the laws of the United States. The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me; but after careful and extensive consideration, I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules - a veritable Catch-22. I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret. — Colleen McMahon

I think the scientists have really caught the attention of the people of this country, and of course, they elected representatives by their very clear pronouncement that if we don't do something, we'll be in a lot of trouble. — Barbara Boxer

Get a load of this, Frank." Gerald Peyton's pause set off his pronouncement. "She is expecting to get a wedding ring."
"That's understandable," I said, unsure how he could afford a ring on what our firm cleared. Diamond rings - more sold in December than in any other month of the year - went for a cool grand per karat. Weeks ago, I'd priced them - again - for my domestic situation. "What seems to be the problem?"
"That's a big leap for me to make."
"I expect you'll make it with room to spare. — Ed Lynskey

The quicksilver of creativity will not be solidified by legal pronouncement; it will necessarily flow into new and sometimes frightening fields. — Mathew Tobriner

How is that light still on, Talbot?" BT asked in hushed tones with a note of reverence in his voice. "There's a machine with Kit-Kats in there, do you have any change, Mr. T?" Tommy asked hopefully. It's amazing to me that all of us had known Tommy long enough that nobody even looked halfway cross-eyed at him at his pronouncement. If Tommy had said that a convention of clowns respite with balloon animals was in there singing Billy Joel songs, we would all have believed him. Of course I wouldn't have gone in, clowns are evil, but I still would have believed him. — Mark Tufo

He was trying to tell me something."
Derek snorted. "Aren't they all? Must be a rule in the ghost handbook - if in danger of evaporating, make sure you're in the middle of a dire pronouncement. — Kelley Armstrong

Economic depression can not be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement — Herbert Hoover

Morgan," I said into the receiver. And if I'd known what was coming I would not have said it so cheerfully. Someone on the other end made a throat-clearing noise, and with a jolt of surprise I recognized it. It was the sound Captain Matthews made when he wanted to call attention to the fact that he was about to make an important pronouncement. But what momentous declaration could he possibly have now, for me, before I even finished one doughnut, and why would he speak it on the phone to a mere forensics wonk? "Ahem, uh, Morgan," the captain said. And then there was silence. "This is Morgan," I said helpfully. "There's a, um," he said, and cleared his throat again. "I have a special assignment. For you. Can you come up to my office? Right now," he said. There was another slight pause, and then, most baffling of all, he added, "Uh. Please." And then he hung up. I — Jeff Lindsay

Twentieth-century art has allowed me to see things in a cryptic way. I love the butterfly's wings, which disappear when folded and when open leave this brilliant, intense pronouncement of nature, 'Here I am.' — Emmet Gowin

Another day in paradise' was his inevitable pronouncement when he settled his head on his pillow. Now I understand what that meant: the uneventful day was a precious gift. — Abraham Verghese

The masses are advancing," said Hegel in apocalyptic fashion. "Without some new spiritual influence, our age, which is a revolutionary age, will produce a catastrophe," was the pronouncement of Comte. "I see the flood-tide of nihilism rising," shrieked Nietzsche from a crag of the Engadine. It is false to say that history cannot be foretold. Numberless times this has been done. If the future offered no opening to prophecy, it could not be understood when fulfilled in the present and on the point of falling back into the past. The idea that the historian is on the reverse side a prophet, sums up the whole philosophy of history, It is true that it is only possible to anticipate the general structure of the future, but that is all that we in truth understand of the past or of the present. — Ortega Y Gasset

It is recorded in the monastic rules that a monk once performed an abortion on a girl; the Buddha judged his action seriously wrong, which incurred him the highest offense in the monastic rule. A monk committing this kind of wrongful deed must be expelled from the monastic community. The Buddha considered the embryo to be a person like an adult, so the monk who killed the embryo through abortion was judged by Buddhist monastic rules as having committed a crime equal in gravity to killing an adult. In the commentary on the rule stated above, it is stated clearly that killing a human being means destroying human life from the first moment of fertilization to human life outside the womb. So, even though the Buddha himself did not give a clear-cut pronouncement about when personhood occurs, the Buddhist tradition, especially the Theravada tradition, clearly states that personhood starts when the process of fertilization takes place. — Soraj Hongladarom

Consider this pronouncement, inscribed on an Assyrian tablet circa 2800 B.C.: Our earth is degenerate these days ... bribery and corruption abound, children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

An alliance with France was enlisted in the war for independence from Britain, then loosened in the aftermath, as France undertook revolution and embarked on a European crusade in which the United States had no direct interest. When President Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address - delivered in the midst of the French revolutionary wars - counseled that the United States "steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world" and instead "safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies," he was issuing not so much a moral pronouncement as a canny judgment about how to exploit America's comparative advantage: the United States, a fledgling power safe behind oceans, did not have the need or the resources to embroil itself in continental controversies over the balance of power. — Henry Kissinger

Academic credentials are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having your ideas taken seriously. If a famous professor repeatedly says stupid things, then tries to claim he never said them, there's no rule against calling him a mendacious idiot - and no special qualifications required to make that pronouncement other than doing your own homework.Conversely, if someone without formal credentials consistently makes trenchant, insightful observations, he or she has earned the right to be taken seriously, regardless of background. — Paul Krugman

Write a smart joke and people want to talk about it and keep the dialogue going. Also, if you can make someone laugh, it's a pronouncement that they like you on some level. — Lizz Winstead

The usual pronouncement that Truman Capote is a 'birdbrain.' Gore [Vidal] has finished a novel called Two Sisters in which he admits that he and Jack Kerouac went to bed together - or was that in an article? (Gore told me about so many articles he's written and talks he has given that my memory spins.) Anyhow, Gore now regrets that he didn't describe the act itself; how they got very drunk and Kerouac said, 'Why don't we take a shower?' and then tried to go down on him but did it very badly, and then they belly rubbed. Next day, Kerouac claimed he remembered nothing; but later, in a bar, yelled out, 'I've blown Gore Vidal! — Christopher Isherwood

But he also threatened that if Google continued to develop Android and used any iPhone features, such as multi-touch, he would sue. At first Google avoided copying certain features, but in January 2010 HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted multi-touch and many other aspects of the iPhone's look and feel. That was the context for Jobs's pronouncement that Google's "Don't be evil" slogan was "bullshit. — Walter Isaacson

I've invited Captain Phelan to join us," Beatrix announced. "He doesn't want to talk. Do not ask him direct questions unless absolutely necessary."
The rest of the family received this unorthodox pronouncement without turning a hair. A footman was dispatched to set a place for him.
"Come in, Phelan," Leo said easily. "We love silent guests--it allows us to talk all the more. By all means, sit and say nothing."
"But if you can manage it," Catherine added with a smile, " try to look impressed by our wit and intelligence."
"I will attempt to add to the conversation," Christopher ventured, "if I can think of anything relevant."
"That never stops the rest of us," Cam remarked. — Lisa Kleypas

A code of ethics cannot be developed overnight by edict or official pronouncement. It is developed by years of practice and performance of duty according to high ethical standards. It must be self-policing. Without such a code, a professional soldier or a group soon loses identity and effectiveness. Once we know our job, have a genuine code of ethics, and maintain unquestioned personal integrity, we have met the first and most demanding challenge of leadership. — Silas L. Copeland

Except they kept asking me questions like 'What is your biggest source of conflict about the Pope?' Or 'Has the Pope ever tried to suppress your scientific work?' Completely out of left field!
"They didn't want to hear me tell them how much Pope Benedict supported the Vatican Observatory and its scientific work. So, finally, frustrated that they weren't getting the story they wanted out of me, one of them asked, 'Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?'
"What did you answer?"
"Only if she asks!"
"I love it! How did they react?"
"They all got a good laugh, which is what I intended. And then, the next day, they all ran my joke as if it were a straight story, as if I had made some sort of official Vatican pronouncement about aliens. — Guy Consolmagno

I expected Dad to do his usual brisk thing and say something like, "Excellent. I will anxiously await your pronouncement on this significant matter." Instead, he just looked relieved and said, "Good."
Thinking we were done, I moved toward the door, but Dad stepped in front of it. "We're not quite finised yet."
I blinked at him, surprised. "I could try to break some more mirrors if you really want me to, Dad, but I'm kind of wiped out. Between last night and today, there's been an awful lot of magin flyin' around for me,and-"
He shook his head. "No,not that. We have one more matter to discuss."
I didn't need my new psychic senses to tell me something bad was coming. "What?"
Dad took a deep breath and folded his arms. "I want you to tell me about Archer Cross. — Rachel Hawkins

I had almost slid back into a more alert version of the contented state I'd been in when I woke up, when Rita jolted me out of my reverie. "Finish up, everybody," she said happily. "We have an awful lot to do today." It seemed like an ominous pronouncement. A lot to do? Like what? I tried to recall whether I had seen a lengthy list of tasks to perform - tasks so urgent that they could invade and conquer a Saturday I had hoped to dedicate to loafing. Nothing came to mind, and no list appeared. Rita was clearly so focused on whatever the jobs might be that she assumed we could all get our instructions from her telepathically. Perhaps my psychic antenna had blown down, but I had no idea at all what I was supposed to prepare for, and it seemed a little bit churlish to ask. — Jeff Lindsay

Hao Kan," I said gently, quietly, firmly as if it was a pact between the two of us.
She blinked. I wasn't sure if she understood. Or if she believed she was beautiful. So I pointed at her and then to me. And I repeated with utter conviction, "Hao Kan."
Those words, my pronouncement, won me the girl's slow nod. I nodded back. And when she smiled, wide and open, I tell you, there was nothing more beautiful that that. — Justina Chen

Many devout Muslims, particularly in the east, understood that attacking helpless people, nonbelievers or not, was contrary to the tenets of Islam. Still, a vast number of Muslims saw the pronouncement of jihad as an endorsement for killing and looting. — Eric Bogosian

Christian writers, whether they like it or not, do not simply write for themselves; for good or ill, readers will see their work as reflecting Jesus Christ and his church. And if only for this reason - though there are other reasons - one must take great care when dealing with potentially controversial topics not to imagine one's every pronouncement preceded by 'Thus saith the Lord.' The law of love, on which 'all the law and the prophets' depend (Matt. 22:40), mandates charity toward one's opponents in argument. — Alan Jacobs

They had to stir the churn of the ocean, until the soma floated up, as butter floats from milk. And this task could not be undertaken in opposition to the Asuras, but only with their help. The pronouncement ran contrary to everything the Devas had previously thought. But in the end, what did they have to lose, given that their lives were so futile? Now they thought: Anything, so long as there be a trial, a risk, a task. — Roberto Calasso

Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, 'War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away.' — Immanuel Kant

Old Lowji's nasty remark would haunt Farrokh forever: "Immigrants are immigrants all their lives!" Once someone makes such a negative pronouncement, you might refute it but you never forget it; some ideas are so vividly planted, they become visible objects, actual things. — John Irving

In the resurrection there is already wrapped up a judging-process, at least for believers: the raising act in their case, together with the attending change, plainly involves a pronouncement of vindication. The resurrection does more than prepare its object for undergoing the judgement; it sets in motion and to a certain extent anticipates the issue of judgement for the Christian. And it were not incorrect to offset this by saying that the judgement places the seal on what the believer has received in the resurrection. — Geerhardus Vos

Diabolical error decks itself out with ease in lying colors with some appearance of truth, so that the force of pronouncement is corrupted by a very brief addition or change, and the confession of faith which should have resulted in salvation, by a subtle transition leads to death! — Pope Clement XIII

A day or two after my love pronouncement, now feral with vulnerability, I sent you the passage from Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes in which Barthes describes how the subject who utters the phrase "I love you" is like "the Argonaut renewing his ship during its voyage without changing its name." Just as the Argo's parts may be replaced over time but the boat is still called the Argo, whenever the lover utters the phrase "I love you," its meaning must be renewed by each use, as "the very task of love and of language is to give to one and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new. — Maggie Nelson

As we grown-ups talked and speculated, my five-year-old daughter looked intently out of the window. Suddenly she turned around and shouted, "Mommy, Mommy, he is not dead! Women are still wearing their scarves." I always associate Khomeini's death with Negar's simple pronouncement - for she was right: the day women did not wear the scarf in public would be the real day of his death and the end of his revolution. Until then, we would continue to live with him. — Azar Nafisi

Vice President Biden's surprising declaration of unqualified support for gay marriage seems to have forced President Obama into a public endorsement of a controversial social issue. It is difficult not to suspect that Biden's pronouncement aimed to give the president some political cover. — Robert Dallek

At the end of each therapy session, I waited for an evaluation, a clinical judgment, some kind of pronouncement on "my condition." I hoped I suffered from something serious, a clear syndrome, maybe requiring heavy medication and hospitalization. I pictured myself wearing a robe and paper slippers and looking out of a window with bars on it. I wanted to be relieved of the responsibility of taking any action to help myself. — Ken Dornstein

It's one thing to make a pronouncement in a moment of inspiration about what you intend to manifest in your life or what kind of person you intend to become. It's quite another thing to make a commitment to holding that vision regardless of what difficulties or obstacles may surface. Holding the vision involves an unwillingness to compromise what you're visualizing for yourself. It means being willing to suffer through criticism and what appears to be an uncooperative universe. — Wayne Dyer

That pronouncement went over about as well as an all-vegan buffet at a Cattlemen's Association dinner. — Dianne Duvall