Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departed friend. [ Shakespeare ]
No longer mourn for me when I am dead.
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled. [ William Shakespeare ]
We cannot pass our guardian angel's bound,
Resign'd or sullen, he will hear our sighs. [ Keble ]
All things that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns, to sullen dirges change:
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary. [ William Shakespeare ]
Although my cares do hang upon my soul
Like mines of lead, the greatness of my spirit
Shall shake the sullen weight off. [ Clapthorne ]
Now began
Night with her sullen wing to double-shade
The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couched.
And now wild beasts came forth, the woods to roam. [ Milton ]
Yes - it was love - if thoughts of tenderness.
Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress,
Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime,
And yet - oh more than all! - untired by time.
Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile,
Could render sullen were she near to smile,
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent
On her one murmur of his discontent;
Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part.
Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart;
Which nought removed, nor menaced to remove -
If there be love in mortals— this was love! [ Byron ]
In this sullen apathy neither true wisdom nor true happiness can be found. [ Hume ]
All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes. [ Goldsmith ]
Things are sullen, and will be as they are, whatever we think them or wish them to be. [ Cudworth ]
All that the wisdom of the proud can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortune. [ Goldsmith ]
With the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. [ Macaulay ]
A jealous man is suspicious, evermore judging the worst; for if his wife be merry, he thinketh her immodest; if sober, sullen; if pleasant, unconstant; if she laugh, it is lewdly; if she look, it is lightly; yea, he is still casting beyond the moon, and watcheth as the crafty cat over the silly mouse. [ J. Bodenham ]