pomp quotes

The second day of July1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. It ought to be solemnised with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the otherfrom this time forward, for ever more.

-John Adams
  Letter to his wife, 3  Jul, on the vote of Congress for independence from Britain.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store, No force to win the victory, No wily wit to salve a sore, No shape to feed each gazing eye; To none of these I yield as thrall. For why my mind doth serve for all.

- Sir Edward Dyer
  'In Praise of a Contented Mind'.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

-Thomas Gray
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.29^36.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances† Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of the superfluous causes.

- Sir Isaac Newton
  Newton's First Rule of Reasoning in Philosophy. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (translated by Andrew Motte,1729).