Quotes & Sayings About Solemnity

Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. — Ambrose Bierce

It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall and the rain fell upon my head-and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation. — Edgar Allan Poe

Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth. — Victor Hugo

Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind since her first assumption of that public position on the Marshal's steps, took the present opportunity of addressing the following Sibyllic apostrophe to the relict of her late nephew.
'Bring him for'ard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!'
Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining that they were going home to dinner. Mr F.'s Aunt persisted in replying, 'Bring him for'ard and I'll chuck him out o' winder!' Having reiterated this demand an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.'s Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as 'he' should have been 'brought for'ard,' and the chucking portion of his destiny accomplished. — Charles Dickens

When compiling his great dictionary, the young Noah Webster travels to the Himalayas, where he climbs to the cave of the world's wises man. 'O, great sage,' he says, 'tell me the meaning of life.' The sage sits Noah at his feet and, with great solemnity, commences to unfold the meaning of life. When finished, he places a hand on the young man's shoulder and says, 'Do you have any other questions, my son?' Noah flips a page in his notebook and says, 'You wouldn't know the meaning of lift, would you?' — Robert Breault

In the garden there was nothing which was not quite like themselves - nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them - the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an end ... there could have been no happiness even in that golden springtime air. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

There is no solemnity so deep, to a right-thinking creature, as that of dawn. — John Ruskin

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging. — Russell Baker

All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. — Virginia Woolf

He holds my gaze, and the look in his eyes is a love letter in itself. When he speaks, his voice is rough. "Will you marry me, Cate?"
I go still, the question hanging in the air. I have never felt more accepted 'for the girl I am, not the girl I want to be' never more loved and respected than I am in this moment. It's a choice, and it's mine to make.
"Yes," I breathe.
Finn slides the simple gold band onto my ring finger. I tilt it, and the ruby sparkles, catching the sunlight. He leans down and brushes his lips against mine, sealing the promise. 'I can't wait to make you my wife.'
'Cate Belastra.' I try it out and despite the solemnity of the moment, despite knowing what this will cost him, I can't help smiling. — Jessica Spotswood

For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of
to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless. — Virginia Woolf

You don't really have to believe what you write in a blog for more than the moment when you're writing it. You don't bring the same solemnity that you would bring to an actual essay. — Nora Ephron

Everything is human. The Spaniard's fear of God, his humility, his solemnity, his scrupulous austerity is a very worthy form of humanity, — Thomas Mann

How I loved the municipal libraries of South Croydon. They were not child-friendly places; in fact, they were not friendly at all, to anyone. They were large, dark, wood-panelled rooms full of books, in which visitors were expected to be silent, and the only sound was the clicking of school shoes on polished parquet floor. The larger building in the town had its own children's library, accessible at one end of the hall via an imposing door, but what lay behind that door was not a children's library as we might understand it today, full of scatter cushions and toys and strategies of appeasement; it revealed simply a smaller, replica wood-panelled room full of books. And this - the shared expectation of respect, the solemnity, the shelves crammed end-to-end with books, no face-outs or yawning gaps - is what I loved about these places and what I found inspiring. The balance of power lay with the books, not the public. This would never be permitted today. — Andy Miller

Come sit on my lap,' she said. Soon, very soon, he would think himself too big for lap-sitting. He got down from his chair and she picked him up; he was solid as anything. She held him close and swayed her body a little, like a cradle rocking, and soon he looked at her with the lovely solemnity that seemed to be a hallmark of their Jack Tyler, and said, ' I could prob'ly have a deviled egg now. — Jan Karon

Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Somehow this literary genre, which most people condemned, acted as a sort of counterbalance to Charles's soul; it was the ballast that prevented him from lurching into the serious or melancholy, unlike Andrew, who had been unable to adopt his cousin's casual attitude to life, and to whom everything seemed so achingly profound, imbed with that absurd solemnity that the transience of of existence conferred upon even the smallest act. — Felix J. Palma

I am going to make you what you may perhaps consider rather a singular proposition. It is this, that if you don't like me, say so at once, and we will part now, before we have time to know anything more of each other, and I will endeavour not to cross your path again unless you seek me out. But if on the contrary, you do like me, - if you find something in my humour or turn of mind congenial to your own disposition, give me your promise that you will be my friend and comrade for a while, say for a few months at any rate. I can take you into the best society, and introduce you to the prettiest women in Europe as well as the most brilliant men. I know them all, and I believe I can be useful to you. But if there is the smallest aversion to me lurking in the depths of your nature" - here he paused, - then resumed with extraordinary solemnity - "in God's name give it full way and let me go, - because I swear to you in all sober earnest that I am not what I seem! — Marie Corelli

Reginald, the dog-bear," I repeated.
"Or bear-dog," she reminded me.
"That's terrible," I said in mock solemnity. "He's already not sure what he is- a dog, a bear ... a bog ... "
She giggled.
"And then you tag him with the name Reginald?" I shook my head. — Stacey Kade

The preternatural solemnity of a good many of the professionally religious is to me a point against them. — Alfred North Whitehead

The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. Our attitude towards our equals in age consists in a servile solemnity, overlying a considerable degree of indifference or disdain. Our attitude towards children consists in a condescending indulgence, overlying an unfathomable respect. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity. — G.K. Chesterton

Clever lies become matters of self-congratulation. Solemn pledges become a farce - laughable for their very solemnity. The Nation, with all its paraphernalia of power and prosperity, its flags and pious hymns, its blasphemous prayers in the churches, and the literary mock thunders of its patriotic bragging, cannot hide the fact that the Nation is the greatest evil for the Nation, that all its precautions are against it, and any new birth of its fellow in the world is always followed in its mind by the dread of a new peril. — Rabindranath Tagore

It was for the most part by sacrifices, processions, and religious dances, which he himself appointed and conducted, and which mingled with their solemnity a diversion full of charm and a beneficent pleasure, that he won the people's favour and tamed their fierce and warlike tempers. At times, also, by heralding to them vague terrors from the god, strange apparitions of divine beings and threatening voices, he would subdue and humble their minds by means of superstitious fears. — Plutarch

Furi pulled back and looked at him with complete solemnity before speaking in a rough voice, "You have me worked up ... you. You make me fuckin' crazy. That shit you did tonight was reckless. You had me scared shitless for a while." Furi — A.E. Via

I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which I have now been dedicated with such solemnity. — Queen Elizabeth II

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

Roald Dahl pioneered a new kind of literature for youngsters, one that dispensed with cant and solemnity, favoring anarchy and joy over duty and humbuggery while acknowledging that oftentimes no good deed goes unpunished. But ultimately, it was his sheer joie de vivre that carried the day. — Paul Di Filippo

and with great solemnity, 'I'm glad yer stopped 'em fighting. I'm scared — Barbara Taylor Bradford

I stood beside Van Helsing, and said;-
"Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!"
He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity:-
"Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning! — Bram Stoker

Her voice was soft and numinous, as befitted any Aizian singer, yet it was not just bells and melody. There was something else in her tune, a strand of solemnity that no Aizian could possess, for it yearned for something far away, whereas Aizians needed only open their eyes to behold the greatest wonders. Yes, she was in Aizai now, but she hadn't always been, and for how much longer was impossible to say. — Mary-Jean Harris

Each night the black sky and the bright stars were my stunning companions; occasionally Id see their beauty and solemnity so plainly that I'd realize in a piercing way that my mother was right. That someday I WOULD be grateful and that in fact I was grateful now, that I felt something growing in me that was strong and real. — Cheryl Strayed

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

The solemnity of the annual Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm with the cheerful bad taste of the grand opening of a shopping center in Los Angeles. — Vincent Canby

The children would remember for the rest of their lives the august solemnity with which their father, devastated by his prolonged vigil and by the wraith of his imagination, revealed his discovery to them: 'The world is round, like an orange. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), who formed a striking contrast to the cheerful light of heaven and the bright smiles of earth. Erebus reigned in that mysterious world below where no ray of sunshine, no gleam of daylight, nor vestige of health-giving terrestrial life ever appeared. Nyx, the sister of Erebus, represented Night, and was worshipped by the ancients with the greatest solemnity. — E.M. Berens

The word "marriage" lingered in Guy's ears, too. It was a solemn word to him. It had the primordial solemnity of holy, love, sin. It was Miriam's round terra cotta-coloured mouth saying, "Why should I put myself out for you?" and it was Anne's eyes as she pushed her hair back and looked up at him on the lawn of her house where she planted crocuses. It was Miriam turning from the tall thin window in the room in Chicago, lifting her freckled, shield-shaped face directly up to his as she always did before she told a lie, and Steve's long dark head, insolently smiling. — Patricia Highsmith

There is a two-fold solemnity which belongs to the dying hour-it is the winding up of life, and it is the commencement of eternity. — Frederick William Robertson

She sat for a moment, feeling the rhythmic rattle of the train's motion. "Does it ever bother you to be in his shadow, Wayne?"
"Who? Wax? I mean, he's been putting on weight, but he's not that fat yet, is he?" He grinned, though that faded when she didn't smile back. And, in an uncharacteristic moment of solemnity, he slid his boots off the table and rested one elbow on it instead, leaning toward her.
"Nah," he said after some thought. "Nah, it doesn't. But I don't care much if people look at me or not. Sometimes my life is easier if they ain't looking at me, ya know? I like listening. — Brandon Sanderson

We must bear in recollection that the sentiment of the picture is that of solemnity, not gaiety & nothing garish, but the contrary - yet it must be bright, clear, alive fresh, and all the front seen. — John Constable

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) — Bible. New International Version

In proportion to the value of this revolution; in proportion to the importance of instruments, every word of which decides a question between power and liberty; in proportion to the solemnity of acts, proclaiming the will authenticated by the seal of the people, the only earthly source of authority, ought to be the vigilance with which they are guarded by every citizen in private life, and the circumspection with which they are executed by every citizen in public trust. — James Madison

Let me here remind you that the essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things. This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama. This remorseless inevitableness is what pervades scientific thought. The laws of physics are the decrees of fate. — Alfred North Whitehead

Solemnity is the shield of idiots — Montesquieu

Nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them
the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs ... if an Egg were to be taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an end ... — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate tolay them aside without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies. — Henry David Thoreau

It is a good life we lead, brother,' said Federico with uncharacteristic solemnity.
'The best,' Ezio agreed.'And may it never change.'
They both paused - neither wishing to break the perfection of the moment - but after a while Federico quietly spoke.'May it never change us either, fratellino. — Oliver Bowden

I suddenly recall the arpeggios of laughter lilting across the tender, springtime grass-gay-welling, far-floating, fluent, spontaneous, a bell-like feminine fluting, then suppressed; as though snuffed swiftly and irrevocably beneath the quiet solemnity of the vespered air now vibrant with somber chapel bells. — Ralph Ellison

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

She argued. She cried. She took my faltering, my tortured refusals for something far finer than they really were. At the end of the afternoon, before we left the wood, and with a solemnity and sincerity, a complete dedication of herself that I cannot describe to you because such unconditional promising is another extinct mystery ... she said, Whatever happens I shall never marry anyone but you. — John Fowles

SHE COULDN'T have said what it was, in the conditions, that renewed the whole solemnity, but by the end of twenty minutes a kind of wistful hush had fallen upon them, as before something poignant in which her visitor also participated. That was nothing verily but the perfection of the charm - or nothing rather but their excluded disinherited state in the presence of it. The — Henry James

There is no river in the world to be compared for majesty and the witchery of association, to the Thames; it impresses even the unreading and unimaginative watcher with a solemnity which he cannot account for, as it rolls under his feet and swirls past the buttresses of its many bridges; he may think, as he experiences the unusual effect, that it is the multiplicity of buildings which line its banks, or the crowd of sea-craft which floats upon its surface, or its own extensive spread. In reality he feels, although he cannot explain it, the countless memories which hang for ever like a spiritual fog over its rushing current.
("The Phantom Model") — Hume Nisbet

Solemnity is a device of the body to hide the faults of the mind. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but in anything important (such as sex, death, and religion), you must have mirth or you will have madness. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,
if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,
if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,
if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men
I will have none of it. — Anna Julia Cooper

If we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death. — Alexander Smith

We are all getting tired of the Village Explainers. Explanations don't seem to be explaining very much anymore. Authoritative accounts have a way of looking like official lies, which in their solemnity start to sound funny. — David Shields

The tragic solemnity of existence strikes us with terrible force on that morning when we wake to find the mournful words "too late" ringing in our ears. — Henri Frederic Amiel

Sense of humor seems to come from all-pervading joy, joy which has room to expand into a completely open situation because it is not involved with the battle between "this" and "that." Joy develops into the panoramic situation of seeing or feeling the whole ground, the open ground. This open situation has no hint of limitation, of imposed solemnity. And if you do try to treat life as a "serious business," if you try to impose solemnity upon life as though everything is a big deal, then it is funny. Why such a big deal? — Chogyam Trungpa

O, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate man, Behold! thou hast one more chance! Strive for immortal glory! — Harriet Beecher Stowe

In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversation and in the circumstances of secular employment. — Jeremy Taylor

Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences. — Soren Kierkegaard

We must sometimes get away from the Authorized Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls. Early associations endear, but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity, the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed, and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame, or struck dumb with terror, or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adorations ... — C.S. Lewis

There is a solitude, or perhaps a solemnity, in the few hours that precede the dawn of day which is unlike that of any others in the twenty-four, and which I cannot explain or account for. Thoughts come to me at this time that I never have at any other. — George Bird Grinnell

There's a very generous donation in the parish's future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most."
Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. "There's an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don't know that I can rush
"
"Ten minutes. One thousand guineas."
The liturgy snapped closed. "Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?" He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. "Make haste, child. You're about to be married. — Tessa Dare

Laughter is a holy thing. It is as sacred as music and silence
and solemnity, maybe more sacred. Laughter is like a prayer, like
a bridge over which creatures tiptoe to meet each other. Laughter
is like mercy; it heals. When you can laugh at yourself, you are
free. — Ted Loder

As a model, I didn't have an identity; I was a chameleon, a silent actress. I was an amorphous thing. I wasn't full of personality, I was full of solitude and solemnity. I wasn't a cover-girl type. — Carmen Dell'Orefice

Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about. There is too much solemnity and intensity in dealing with sacred matters; too much speaking in holy tones. — C.S. Lewis

If you're serious, you really understand that it's important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you're the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you're funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity. — Maya Angelou

Anything that doesn't fit this mode has been shoved into an area of lesser solemnity called 'genre fiction,' and it is here that the spy thriller and the crime story and the adventure story and the supernatural tale and the science fiction, however excellently written, must reside, sent to their rooms, as it were, for the misdemeanor of being enjoyable in what is considered a meretricious way. They invent, and we all know they invent, at least up to a point, and they are, therefore, not about 'real life,' which ought to lack coincidences and weirdness and action-adventure, unless the adventure story is about war, of course, where anything goes, and they are, therefore, not solid. — Margaret Atwood

So, you see, you will have to learn to listen to more of the radio music of life. It'll do you good. You are uncommonly poor in gifts, a poor blockhead, but by degrees you will come to grasp what is required of you. You have got to learn to laugh. That will be required of you. You must apprehend the humor of life, its gallows-humor. But of course you are ready for everything in the world except what will be required of you. You are ready to stab girls to death. You are ready to be executed with all solemnity. You would be ready, no doubt, to mortify and scourge yourself for centuries together. Wouldn't you? It is time to come to your senses...You are to live and to learn to laugh. You are to learn to listen to the cursed radio music of life and to reverence the spirit behind it and to laugh at its distortions. So there you are. More will not be asked of you — Hermann Hesse

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others ... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. — Virginia Woolf

A wedding is a celebration of marriage, of an institution ordained by God at the creation of man, to be entered into with solemnity as well as with joy. — Elisabeth Elliot

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. — Frederick Douglass

Happy is the soul that has a friend. Happier is the soul that trusts in the truth of the heart of a friend. Happiest is the soul that knows the solemnity of friendship and honours its laws. — Ogwo David Emenike

...Leaning on her maid, she stole through the winding galleries, and lightly descending the stairs, entered the long hall, which terminated in a dark arched passage that opened into the chapel. This was a wild and gloomy structure: beneath it were the vaults which contained the ancestors of the earl of Dunreath, whose deeds and titles were enumerated on gothic monuments: their dust-covered banners waving around in sullen dignity to the rude gale, which found admittance through the broken windows. The light which the maid held produced deep shadows, that heightened the solemnity of the place. — Regina Maria Roche

It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky ... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe. — Victor Hugo

Because finally, 'the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience' is held by the same tenure with all his other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consider the 'Declaration of those rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of government,' it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis. — James Madison

The horrors of Vivisection have supplanted the solemnity, the thrilling fascination, of the old unetherized operation upon the human sufferer. Their recorded phenomena, stored away by the physiological inquisitor on dusty shelves, are mostly of as little present use to man as the knowledge of a new comet or of a tungstate of zirconium ... -contemptibly small compared with the price paid for it in agony and torture. — Henry Jacob Bigelow

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

Then humming thrice, he assumed a most ridiculous solemnity of aspect, and entered into a learned investigation of the nature of stink...The French were pleased with the putrid effluvia of animal food; and so were the Hottentots in Africa, and the Savages in Greenland; and that the Negroes on the coast of Senegal would not touch fish till it was rotten; strong presumptions in favour of what is generally called stink, as those nations are in a state of nature, undebauched by luxury, unseduced by whim and caprice: that he had reason to believe the stercoraceous flavour, condemned by prejudice as a stink, was, in fact, most agreeable to the organs of smelling; for, that every person who pretended to nauseate the smell of another's excretions, snuffed up his own with particular complacency... — Tobias Smollett

He has no other recommendation, save an assumed and crafty solemnity of demeanour. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Everyone seems to assume that the unscrupulous parts of journalism will be the frivolous or jocular parts. This is against all ethical experience. Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is almost always dishonest. The writer of the snippet merely refers to a frivolous and fugitive fact in a frivolous and fugitive way. The writer of the leading article has to write about a fact he has known for 20 minutes as though he has studied it for 20 years. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is always dishonest. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Am I horny enough to hump a bedpost?" Mica asked. "Not quite yet. Should I consult with you first, Doctor?" Sarcasm lay thick and heavy in her voice.
"I believe a consult would be a good idea." Ely nodded with mocking solemnity as Mica lifted herself onto the gurney. "You never know what you may end up hurting if the act isn't done properly. — Lora Leigh

One of the earliest and most vivid memories of Robin's childhood was of the day that the family dog had been put down. She herself had been too young to understand what her father was saying; she took the continuing existence of Bruno, her oldest brother's beloved Labrador, for granted. Confused by her parents' solemnity, she had turned to Stephen for a clue as to how to react, and all security had crumbled, for she had seen, for the first time in her short life, happiness and comfort drain out of his small and merry face, and his lips whiten as his mouth fell open. She had heard oblivion howling in the silence that preceded his awful scream of anguish, and then she had cried, inconsolably, not for Bruno, but for the terrifying grief of her brother. — Robert Galbraith

AGONISTES (AGONI'STES) n.s.[ Gr.]A prize-fighter; one that contends at any public solemnity for a prize. Milton has so stiled his tragedy, because Sampson was called out to divert the Philistines with feats of strength. — Samuel Johnson

All kinds of performance practices have a certain register of power or solemnity. — Theaster Gates

In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity is more touching than any humility; their solemnity gives us more hope for all things than a thousand carnivals of optimism; their large and lustrous eyes seem to hold all the stars in their astonishment; their fascinating absence of nose seems to give to us the most perfect hint of the humour that awaits us in the kingdom of heaven. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Suddenly ... a sound ... the strangest, undoubtedly, that these lonely cliffs of France had ever heard, broke the silent solemnity of the shore. So strange a sound was it that the gentle breeze ceased to murmur, the tiny pebbles to roll down the steep incline! So strange, that Marguerite, wearied, overwrought as she was, thought that the beneficial unconsciousness of the approach of death was playing her half-sleeping senses a weird and elusive trick. It was the sound of a good, solid, absolutely British Damn! — Emmuska Orczy

Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit ... So here we are several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration. How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves. — Ogden Nash

Note the significant fact that we always hear of the "fall of man," not the fall of woman, showing that the consensus of human thought has been more unerring than masculine interpretation. Reading this narrative carefully, it is amazing that any set of men ever claimed that the dogma of the inferiority of woman is here set forth. The conduct of Eve from the beginning to the end is so superior to that of Adam. The command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge was given to the man alone before woman was formed. Genesis ii, 17. Therefore the injunction was not brought to Eve with the impressive solemnity of a Divine Voice, but whispered to her by her husband and equal. It was a serpent supernaturally endowed, a seraphim as Scott and other commentators have claimed, who talked with Eve, and whose words might reasonably seem superior to the second-hand story of her — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

When she had gone upstairs, he walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one's head. — Ayn Rand

The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things. — Alfred North Whitehead

From what cause the rite of baptism first proceeded is not expressed formally in the scripture, but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning leprosy, wherein the leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the camp of Israel for a certain time, after which time being judged by the priest to be clean, he was admitted into the camp after a solemn washing. And this may therefore be a type of the washing in baptism, wherein such men as are cleansed of the leprosy of Sin by Faith, are received into the church with the solemnity of baptism. — Thomas Hobbes

But what will not be forgotten, and what will and should continue to obsess our imaginations, is this revelation of the possibilities of the universe, this destruction of our ignorant self-complacency, and this demonstration of how narrow is the path of our material existence and what abysses may lie upon either side of it. Solemnity and humility are at the base of all our emotions to-day. May they be the foundations upon which a more earnest and reverent race may build a more worthy temple. — Arthur Conan Doyle

For those few like me who live without knowing how to have life, what's left but renunciation as our way and contemplation as our destiny? Not knowing nor able to know what religious life is, since faith isn't acquired through reason, and unable to have faith in or even react to the abstract notion of man, we're left with the aesthetic contemplation of life as our reason for having a soul. Impassive to the solemnity of any and all worlds, indifferent to the divine, and disdainers of what is human, we uselessly surrender ourselves to pointless sensation, cultivated in a refined Epicureanism, as befits our cerebral nerves. — Fernando Pessoa

I tutored myself in the art of solemnity, kept my euphoria private, and adopted a serious demeanour in keeping with everyone else and the general ambience of the house. I continued my solitary daily walks about the estate, carefully choreographing scenes and conversations yet to happen. I returned to those places of our clandestine moments together, replaying them in my head, languishing in his treasured words . . . and sometimes adding more. I stood under frosty sunsets, my warm breath mingling with the cold evening air as I watched the silent flight of birds across the sky. And even in those twilit autumnal days I felt a light shine down upon my path. For though he was no longer at Deyning, no longer in England, the fact that he lived and breathed had already altered my vision; and nothing, not even a war, could quell my faith in the inevitability of his presence in my life. — Judith Kinghorn