The Great Seal of the Realm or Great Seal of the United Kingdom (prior to the Treaty of Union the Great Seal of England, then until the Union of 1801 the Great Seal of Great Britain) is a seal that is used to symbolise the Sovereign's approval of important state documents. Sealing wax is melted in a metal mould or matrix and impressed into a wax figure that is attached by cord or ribbon to documents that the monarch wishes to make official.
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Famous quotes containing the words seal and/or realm:
“Don’t forget that even our most obscene vices nearly always bear the seal of sullen greatness.”
—Gesualdo Bufalino (b. 1920)
“Without being bound to the fulfillment of promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be condemned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each man’s lonely heart, caught in its contradictions and equivocalities—a darkness which only the light shed over the public realm through the presence of others, who confirm the identity between the one who promises and the one who fulfills, can dispel.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)