Solemn High Mass

Famous quotes containing the words solemn, high and/or mass:

    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 (b. 1925)

    Like an unseasonable stormy day,
    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
    As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
    So high above his limits swells the rage
    Of Bolingbroke.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    ... in the happy laughter of a theatre audience one can get the most immediate and numerically impressive guarantee that there is nothing in one’s mind which is not familiar to the mass of persons living at the time.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)