Nobility Quotes - Page 11

• How many ills spring from adultery? First the supreme law that is violated, Nobility oft stain'd with bastardy, Inheritance of land falsely possessed, The husband scorn'd, wife sham'd, and babes unbless'd.

  John Webster

  Husband, Spring, Law

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• Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.

  Francis Bacon

  Birth, Industry

  'Essays' (1625) 'Of Nobility'

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• In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to expect nobleness from us. Though we have gold to give, they demand only copper.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Men, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.111, Penguin

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• There is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn't just fall to a person's lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn't go to anyone other than oneself to find her.

  Seneca the Younger

  Wisdom, Courage, Fall

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• What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?

  Ayn Rand

  Believe, People, Endurance

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.264, Penguin

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• She knew that the horse, born to serve nobly, had waited in vain for someone noble to serve. His spirit knew that nobility had gone out of men.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Horse, Men, Gone

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.4209, Delphi Classics

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• Odd words floated back to them over the hundreds of heads. "Nobility of spirit"..."intellectual contribution"..."greatness of heart"...It did not mean very much. It had little to do with Dumbledore as Harry had known him. He suddenly remembered Dumbledore's idea of a few words, "nitwit," "oddment," "blubber," and "tweak," and again had to suppress a grin.

  J. K. Rowling

  Heart, Mean, Greatness

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• You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today - and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Reality, Men

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.323, Penguin

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• To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.

  Aristotle

  Suicide, Running, Suicidal

  Nicomachean Ethics 3

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• Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

  Gail Caldwell

  Dog, Sight, Years

  Gail Caldwell (2010). “Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship”, p.177, Random House

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• The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man's life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.

  Eero Saarinen

  Men, Purpose, Earth

  Eero Saarinen (1962). “Eero Saarinen on His Work: A Selection of Buildings Dating from 1947 to 1964 with Statements by the Architect”, New Haven : Yale University Press

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• Charity is an ugly trick. It is a virtue grown by the rich on the graves of the poor. Unless it is accompanied by sincere revolt against the present social system, it is a cheap moral swagger. In former times it was used as fire insurance by the rich, but now that the fear of Hell has gone along with the rest of revealed religion, it is used either to gild mean lives with nobility or as a political instrument.

  Rebecca West

  Mean, Fire, Justice

  Rebecca West, Jane Marcus (1982). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, New York : Viking Press

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• If you would find happiness and joy, lose your life in some noble cause. A worthy purpose must be at the center of every worthy life.

  Jack H. Goaslind

  Life, Joy, Finding Happiness

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• To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

  Jimmy Carter

  Life, Political, Everyday

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• The prince who relies upon their words, without having otherwise provided for his security, is ruined; for friendships that are won by awards, and not by greatness and nobility of soul, although deserved, yet are not real, and cannot be depended upon in time of adversity.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Time, Real, Adversity

  "The Prince". Book by Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513.

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• There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.

  Jay McInerney

  Failing, Shabby

  Jay McInerney (2011). “Bright Lights, Big City”, p.31, Vintage

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• Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Numbers, Race, Names

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• Some new machinery with adequate powers must be created now if our fine phrases and noble sentiments are to have substance and meaning for our children.

  J. William Fulbright

  Children, Future, Noble

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• No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live.

  Mark Twain

  God, Political, Religion

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• Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.

  Dorothy Day

  Names, Mediocrity, Proud

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• Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Religious, Voice, Imagination

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• Geology is rapidly taking its place as an introduction to the higher history of man. If the author has sought to exalt a favorite science, it has been with the desire that man-in whom geological history had its consummation, the prophecies of the successive ages their fulfilment-might better comprehend his own nobility and the true purpose of his existence.

  James Dwight Dana

  Science, Men, History

  James Dwight Dana (1869). “Manual of Geology: Treating of the Principles of the Science, with Special Reference to American Geological History, for the Use of Colleges, Academies, and Schools of Science”, p.9

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• Suffering is by no means a privilege, a sign of nobility, a reminder of God. Suffering is a fierce, bestial thing, commonplace, uncalled for, natural as air. It is intangible; no one can grasp it or fight against it; it dwells in time - is the same thing as time; if it comes in fits and starts, that is only so as to leave the sufferer more defenseless during the moments that follow, those long moments when one relives the last bout of torture and waits for the next.

  Cesare Pavese

  Mean, Fighting, Air

  Cesare Pavese (2017). “This Business of Living: Diaries 1935-1950”, p.211, Routledge

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• And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined, for the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is merited but is not secured, and at times is not to be had.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, War, Preparation

  "The Prince". Book by Niccolò Machiavelli, ch. 17, as translated by Luigi Ricci (1903), 1513.

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• Traces of nobility, gentleness, and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly.

  Walt Kelly

  People, Ugly, Trends

  Walt Kelly (1974). “Pogo revisited: containing the complete volumes of The Pogo poop book, Instant Pogo [and] The Jack Acid Society black book”, Simon & Schuster

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