Gloomy Quotes (5 quotes)
I have always considered that the substitution of the internal combustion engine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind.
Speaking in the House of Commons (24 Jun 1952), as cited in Jack House (ed.), Winston Churchill, His Wit and Wisdom: Selections from His (1965), 115.
If we peep into Dom Claude’s cell, we are introduced to a typical alchemist’s laboratory—a gloomy, dimly-lighted place, full of strange vessels, and furnaces, and melting-pots, spheres, and portions of skeletons hanging from the ceiling; the floor littered with stone bottles, pans, charcoal, aludels, and alembics, great parchment books covered with hieroglyphics; the bellows with its motto Spira, Spera; the hour-glass, the astrolabe, and over all cobwebs, and dust, and ashes. The walls covered with various aphorisms of the brotherhood; legends and memorials in many tongues; passages from the Smaragdine Table of Hermes Trismegistus; and looming out from all in great capitals, ’ANAΓKH.
In The Birth of Chemistry (1874), 100.
On the 25th of this month I remove to the SchoolHouse beyond Gray’s Ferry to succeed the present Teacher there. I shall recommence that painful profession once more with the same gloomy sullen resignation that a prisoner re-enters his Dungeon or a Malefactor mounts the Scaffold; Fate urges him, necessity me. … I shall have many difficulties to overcome in establishing my own Rules and authority. But perseverance overcometh all things.
From Letter to Charles Orr (14 Feb 1802), collected in Clark Hunter (ed.), The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson (1983), 191-192.
The world over which early man wandered was to him the theatre of a never-ending conflict, in which were arrayed against him impassable seas, unscalable mountains, gloomy forests peopled by deadly beasts of prey, raging streams and foaming torrents, each and all the haunts of spirits luring him to doom.
In 'The Relations of Geology', Scottish Geographical Magazine (Aug 1902), 19, No. 8, 395-396.
Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.
— Movie
Love Actually (Prime Minister)
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
