Momentous Quotes
More Momentous Quotes
I have at last come to a momentous decision. I am going to give up my press-clippings agency. I find that even a Wolf favourablenoticemakesmefeelsick nowadays,whilean unfavourable one, even from a small provincial newspaper, puts me off my work for days.
Plum— 1934 Letter to Denis Mackail,15 Oct.
Brian had a special relationship with the audience — he broke through in a way few others do. They had come to trust him as a voice of calm — whether reporting on momentous events of history, or the grand state events. For more than 30 years, it was that quality above all others that distinguished Brian as one of the BBC's brightest and best.
brian hanrahan— Editorial tribute by Jon Williams, BBC World News editor (20 December 2010)
The invention of writs was really the making of the English Common Law; and the credit of this momentous achievement, which took place chiefly between 1150 and 1250, must be shared between the officials of the royal Chancery, who framed new forms, and the royal judges, who either allowed them or quashed them.
edward jenks— Chapter IV, Improved Legal Procedure, p. 45
The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent was: Shall France remain here, or shall she not?
francis parkman— Introduction
These choices by small countries are vital for them, but may be more momentous than commonly understood for others as well, including the major powers, who presumptuously believe they are in control of events.
william pfaff— Chapter 3, Central Europe, p. 70
The seers of ancient India had, in their experiments and efforts at spiritual training and the conquest of the body, perfected a discovery which in its importance to the future of human knowledge dwarfs the divinations of Newton and Galileo , even the discovery of the inductive and experimental method in Science was not more momentous...
sri aurobindo— The Upanishads–II : Kena and Other Upanishads (2001), p. 355
... for all the reasons we have discussed in these pages, judgments brought to the board by leaders are likely to be better than those coming to the board in a command company. Moreover, the effective working relationships between leaders and directors in a leadership company further ensures the exercise of sound judgments for such momentous decisions ...
marvin bower— p. 134 (The Will to Manage (1966))
The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a President of the United States.
Alexander Hamilton— No. 75
A multitude of words is probably the most formidable means of blurring and obscuring thought. There is no thought, however momentous, that cannot be expressed lucidly in 200 words.
Eric Hoffer— Entry (1954)
I could never figure out or probably did not take the trouble to figure out what the great philosophical problems are about. The momentous statements I come across are at best a storm in a teacup. There are quite a number of people who have a vested interest in the stuff, make a noble living out of it, and they conspire with one another to keep it alive.
Eric Hoffer— Entry (1977)
The inquiry into the proper aims and limits of State agency must be of the highest importance nay, that it is perhaps more vitally momentous than any other political question.
wilhelm von humboldt— Ch. 1 (The Limits of State Action (1792))
We are living in what the Greeks called the right time for a "metamorphosis of the gods," i.e. of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science.
carl jung— p 110
The whole question of evolution seems less momentous than it did, because, unlike the Victorians, we do not feel that to be descended from animals is degrading to human dignity.
george orwell— "As I Please," Tribune (21 July 1944)[17]
The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or to evil.
pythagoras— As quoted in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, as translated by Robert Drew Hicks (1925)Variant translation: The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.As quoted in Ionia, a Quest (1954) by Freya Stark, p. 94
Part of me felt like something momentous was about to happen. The other part of me expected to wake up at any moment, to come out of this fever dream or stress episode or whatever it was and wake up with my face in a puddle of drool on the Smart Aid break room table and think, Well, that was strange , and then return to the boring old business of being me. But I didn't wake up.
— Chapter 6, Page 139 (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011))
It becomes a momentous occasion, therefore, when someone emerges showing the restraint and spirituality of approach required to retain the essential quality of an art that took its birth with a sage.
— By K. Chandrasekharan on Rukmini Devi Arundale quoted in "History of Bharatanatyam".
The invention of writs was really the making of the English Common Law; and the credit of this momentous achievement, which took place chiefly between 1150 and 1250, must be shared between the officials of the royal Chancery, who framed new forms, and the royal judges, who either allowed them or quashed them.
— Chapter IV, Improved Legal Procedure, p. 45
The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a President of the United States.
— Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, ed. Benjamin F. Wright, no. 75, p. 477 (1961).
the European bourgeoisie took the momentous steps of co-opting on behalf of both marriage and work the pleasures hitherto pessimistically or perhaps realistically confined, by aristocrats, to the subsidiary realms of the love affair and the hobby.
Alain de Botton— Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 109
When we sent that first message, there weren't any reporters, cameras, tape recorders or scribes to document that major event. … We knew we were creating an important new technology that we expected would be of use to a segment of the population, but we had no idea how truly momentous an event it was.
— Leonard Kleinrock, on the first use of internet technology, as quoted in "Internet Began 35 Years Ago at UCLA with First Message Ever Sent Between Two Computers" (2 September 2004)
Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, - very momentous to us in these times.
— Thomas Carlyle (1859). On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History: Six Lectures: Reported. Wiley & Halsted. pp. 147, Lect. V: "The Hero as Man of Letters".
The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or to evil.
— As quoted in Ionia, a Quest (1954) by Freya Stark, p. 94
September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life.
— Tony Blair, as quoted in "Attacks remembered: In quotes" at BBC News (11 September 2002)
It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.
— Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League. Interview in Akhbar Al-Yom Newspaper, on the impending Arab attack on the fledgling state of Israel.[ ]
