"Sobering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tragedy too profound; the very setting of the tremendous scene—all its monstrous and gigantic accessories—left an impression ineradicable upon the soul. Adolescence matured to manhood in those days of iron; youthful ignorance became stern experience, sobering with its enduring leaven the serious years ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... to explain, with some diffidence the stillness of the room sobering me—that I wished to see the king, when he who had advanced took me up sharply with, 'The king? the king? He is not here, man. He is hunting at St. Valery. Did they ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... that are the slow accumulations of centuries. He will have a sense of the continuous efforts and energies that have gone into the making of contemporary civilization. He will have, in suggesting ruthless innovations, a sobering sense of the gradual evolution that has made present institutions, habits, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... quieted down. They had to. The police left after sobering up long enough to give me a serious warning against letting such a thing happen again. Mr. Miller, who had come home to see what all the excitement was, went back to work and Mrs. Miller went back to the house and the reporter and photographer drifted off to file ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... money left in his pocket, his small savings, deposited at one of the banks in Christminster, having fortunately been left untouched. To get to Marygreen, therefore, his only course was walking; and the distance being nearly twenty miles, he had ample time to complete on the way the sobering ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... after the commencement of daily Iraqi long-range rocket bombardments of Tehran that amounted to a reign of terror. Given that both sides were exhausted at that point, a show of force could have been convincing. Strong U.S. action in response to Iran's mining of neutral waters may also have had a sobering effect on the mullahs. Not only were Iran's vulnerable oil-producing platforms in the Gulf boarded and destroyed with impunity by the U.S., but Iranian naval forces that had come out to challenge the U.S. Navy were destroyed. Iraq's reign of terror, and the strong American message to Iran, ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... found, our dingy friend, Amid the trench's sobering slosh, What must have left him, by the end, A wiser, if a sadder, Boche, Seeing himself, with chastened mien, In that ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... stumbled forward, the native's falls became less frequent. "Sobering up," was Phi's mental comment. "We'll soon strike a place where the path leads down the side of the cliff. I wonder if he can make that alone or ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... if I build another," corrected Hawkins, sobering suddenly, "I shall be careful not to use that rear arrangement at all. I shall place the valve of the balloon where I can get at it more ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... could have been truthfully described as remarkable for its sobriety. But by the universal testimony of those qualified to judge in such matters—police, clergy of all denominations, and workers for social welfare—the political movement had a sobering and steadying influence on the people, which became more and more noticeable as the movement developed, and especially as the volunteers grew in numbers and discipline. The "man in the street" gained a sense of responsibility from the feeling that he ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... and added quickly, his face sobering. "And it is an honor to any man to receive the votes of men like your fathers and Ham here and you two boys, even in prospect, an honor, that, believe me, I appreciate," and the light in his forceful eyes deepened, as if he were seeing visions of the future. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... you a little bit of the Dowager's. Look here: Our dear Dorothea is still perhaps just a thought wanting in seriousness, but the sense of her position is having a sobering effect.'" ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... hard to realize in the present day, when we contemplate these events through the sobering light of the deplorable sequel, how immense and wide-spreading was the enthusiasm that at this particular juncture seemed to put the fervent soul of a George Sand or an Armand Barbes into the most lukewarm and timid. "More than one," writes Madame d'Agoult, "who for the ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... I can help it; only you do look so like a fat, speckled frog, I may not be able to hold in. I'll pull you out pretty soon; but first I'm going to talk to you, Sam," said Ben, sobering down as he took a seat on the little point of land nearest ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... her stay. About Marian there was something more congenial than about her city friends, and day after day found her there, watching while Marian fashioned into shape the beautiful little garments, the sight of which had over Katy a strangely quieting influence, sobering her down and maturing her more than all the years of her life had done. Those were happy hours spent with Marian Hazelton, the happiest of the entire day, and Katy felt it keenly when Wilford at last interfered, telling her she was growing quite ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... just sobering up after its brief and tempestuous reign as headquarters town, and though depleted and thin, it was now making a bid for permanency. But the sting and wildness of life had departed with the construction operations, and now Benton had become the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... after having received the letter. I then resumed my work: and with a saddened heart and a weakened constitution, labored until three days ago, when, I again broke the bonds of my resolutions. To-day I am sobering off myself: and when my bottle is emptied of its contents, I shall drink ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... the New Outlook.—The European conflict will probably exercise a strong sobering influence upon the minds of the people. The gravity of the crisis, whatever victories may crown our arms, will be reflected in the gravity of the people. A new dignity, a greater self-respect, a deeper earnestness ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... eggs a day (for in November and December the hens do act like they are possessed!); when sometimes your cow will be dry; when your neighbor is mad and won't remember the potato-barrel—the outlook for one is not simple; for two it is sobering. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... countries or from those where disaster has brought such sobering change that men can return to work heartened with new hope, when the war is over there is likely to be a heavy emigration of disgusted people. Possibly even victory will be so dear that men will emigrate from a country half prostrate in its triumph. Many will come ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... though Sister Margaret told Rosamond they had never had such a sobering lesson in their lives as their share in ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thick with people, but by no means uncomfortably crowded; altogether that assembly must have numbered many thousands. They were brilliantly, even fantastically dressed, the men as fancifully as the women, for the sobering influence of the Puritan conception of dignity upon masculine dress had long since passed away. The hair of the men, too, though it was rarely worn long, was commonly curled in a manner that suggested the barber, and baldness had vanished from the earth. Frizzy straight-cut ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... tones from the doorway; and through a white mist of milk, the Englishman had a vision of the business end of two rifles pointed at him at short range, held by rough bearded customers, and of a white-faced girl convulsed in laughter. The sobering effect of the metal throat of a rifle a few inches removed from your breast is considerable, and the Intelligence officer was a captured man. But for a moment only. Something swished past his ear, and a great star appeared in the white-washed ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Conway received had the effect of sobering him, but he presented a pitiable sight. His face was covered with blood, and one eye was nearly closed. When he knew it was Calhoun that had struck him, his rage was fearful. Nothing but blood would wipe out the insult. For a Kentucky gentleman ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... of point after point, seeing presently ways of escape and relief which the besotted brain beside him had been quite incapable of devising for itself. They walked on into the open country, and what with the discipline of the rector's presence, the sobering effect wrought by the shock to pride and habit, and the unwonted brain exercise of the conversation, the demon in Henslowe had been for the moment most strangely tamed after half an hour's talk. Actually some reminiscences of his old ways of speech and thought, the ways of the once ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... matters to a sobering climax.* When it was settled, resentment lingered, but the tension was never again so acute. Both Great Britain and in Canada the normal sympathy with the cause of the Union revived as the war went on. In England the classes continued to be pro-Southern ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... mistaken," he said at last, sobering. "You are the same lad the train hands put off the Atlantic Express at Vernon a ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... man so packed with healthy-mindedness as never to have experienced in his own person any of these sobering intervals, still, if he is a reflecting being, he must generalize and class his own lot with that of others; and, doing so, he must see that his escape is just a lucky chance and no essential difference. He might just as well have been born to an entirely ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... penetrating onward to the distant peninsula of Lleyn, which was part of the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast scheme, was yet only in its earlier stages, and already the difficulties of the undertaking had had their sobering effects. The original idea of Mr. Piercy was to build a huge bridge from Ynyslas across the estuary of the Dovey to Aberdovey, whence it was proposed to run a service of steam boats to Ireland. ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... luxuriance only in the centre, where civilisation and the destroying step of man have not made their way. Here the original forest is still to be seen in all its pride; untouched, untrimmed, unheeded by man: full of all its sublime grandeur—solemn, vast, and mysterious as forests have ever been; sobering, soothing, and beautiful as forests will ever be. In some of the valleys the trees are principally of the deciduous kind; enormous oaks, and chestnuts, and beeches, filling up the vacant space left by the granitic walls on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... been going on? Five weeks, eh! Been blind? Oh—why didn't you use that pilocarpin I gave you—I see." The officers and other white men stood about in a compact and silent group. A sudden grave realization of the situation had descended upon them, sobering their careless or laughing countenances. No one knew exactly what it was all about, but some had caught the word "blindness" and repeated it to others. Some one yelled "kalale" savagely at the chattering men. Almost a dead stillness fell on the clearing, so that in the falling twilight ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... blue. It was—how shall I say it?—a night effect when you seem to see vague shapes and don't know what reality you may come upon at any time. Then she lowered her eyelids again, shutting all mysteriousness out of the situation except for the sobering memory of that glance, nightlike in the sunshine, expressively still in the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... haw!" roared the engineer, letting fall his knife and fork in his merriment. "I'd cut a figger at the head of an army, or speakin' in Congress, or a-setten' on a gold throne, wouldn't I? No! no! my man!" sobering down suddenly, into a sort of sad dignity. "Yer father ain't got the brains nor the eddication for nothin' of that kind! All he ken do is to live clean an' honest in the sight o' the Lord, an' to run his ingine 'cordin' to ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... said Coke, scowling as if he were inclined to repeat the assault, though he was not then aware of the more strenuous method adopted by the rock as a sobering agent. "I didn't know you was there. But 'e fair gev' me a turn, 'e did, singin' 'is pot-'ouse crambos w'en we was in the very jors of death, so ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... too busy with big game at Oxford to have that trouble about such quarry as I," the young man said lightly, "and the Gainer is not likely to stir far from Edmund while land is being distributed." Then, sobering, he gave the other a grave glance over his shoulder. "Even though the errand for danger could not be accomplished, how could I do less than undertake it? Did not the boy go through some risk for me when he betrayed his own countryman to get me out of a hard place? Had they guessed ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... conscientiously followed must lead, I should think, to the purest happiness this life can offer. I think much of this change may be attributed to the example and influence of some deservedly dear friends of his; probably something to the sobering effect of the disappointment and mortification of his failure at college, where such sanguine hopes and expectations of his success had been entertained. Above all, I refer his present purpose to that higher influence which has followed him through all his mental ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble |
