Noble Quotes - Page 23

• The noble style immobilizes its subjects.

  Mason Cooley

  Style, Subjects

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• Let us not go hurrying about and collecting honey, bee-like buzzing here and there for a knowledge of what is not to be arrived at, but let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive and receptive, budding patiently under the eye of Apollo, and taking hints from every noble insect that favours us with a visit - sap will be given us for meat and dew for drink.

  John Keats

  Flower, Knowledge, Eye

  John Keats (2002). “Selected Letters”, p.63, Oxford University Press, USA

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• At least in popular parlance, what makes religious folks religious today is not so much that they believe in Jesus' divinity or Buddhism's Four Noble Truths but that they hold certain moral positions on bedroom issues such as premarital sex, homosexuality, and abortion.

  Stephen Prothero

  Religious, Jesus, Sex

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• The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Artist, Imagination, Track

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.153

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• The boatmen appeared to lead an easy and contented life, and we thought that we should prefer their employment ourselves to many professions which are much more sought after. They suggested how few circumstances are necessary to the well-being and serenity of man, how indifferent all employments are, and that any may seem noble and poetic to the eyes of men, if pursued with sufficient buoyancy and freedom.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Work, Eye

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.148, Xist Publishing

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• If a woman be herself pure and noble-hearted, she will come into every circle as a person does into a heated room, who carries with him the freshness of the woods where he has been walking.

  Frances Power Cobbe

  Circles, Doe, Woods

  Frances Power Cobbe (2010). “The Duties of Women: A Course of Lectures”, p.140, Cambridge University Press

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• It is in the faculty of noble, disinterested, unselfish love that lies the true gift and power of womanhood,--a power which makes us, not the equal of men (I never care to claim such equality), but their equivalents; more than their equivalents in a moral sense.

  Frances Power Cobbe

  Lying, Power, Men

  Frances Power Cobbe (1882). “The Duties of Women: A Course of Lectures”

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• The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests wide and far, enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before, and which they were not capable of alone.  The consciousness of belonging, vitally, to something beyond individuality; of being part of a personality that reaches we know not where, in space and time, greatens the heart to the limit of the souls ideal, and builds out the supreme character.

  Joshua Chamberlain

  Life, Motivational, Dream

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• From Day One, I've told [my troops] that killing is not wrong if it's for a purpose, if it's to keep your nation free or protect your buddy, one of the most noble things you can do is kill the enemy.

  Douglas A. Zembiec

  Enemy, Troops, Purpose

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• One of the permanent possessions of the human heart is the memory of its noble enthusiasms.

  Ida Tarbell

  Memories, Heart, Enthusiasm

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• What ass first let loose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege?

  H. L. Mencken

  Voting, Democracy, Doctrine

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• One is conscious of no brave and noble earnestness in it, of no generalized passion for intellectual and spiritual adventure, of no organized determination to think things out. What is there is a highly self-conscious and insipid correctness, a bloodless respectability submergence of matter in manner--in brief, what is there is the feeble, uninspiring quality of German painting and English music.

  H. L. Mencken

  Spiritual, Determination, Adventure

  H. L. Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2010). “H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series”, Hubsta Ltd

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• No man is nobler born than another, unless he is born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition. They who make such a parade with their family pictures and pedigrees, are, properly speaking, rather to be called noted or notorious than noble persons. I thought it right to say this much, in order to repel the insolence of men who depend entirely upon chance and accidental circumstances for distinction, and not at all on public services and personal merit.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Order, Ancestry

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• The origin of all mankind was the same; it is only a clear and good conscience that makes a man noble, for that is derived from heaven itself.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Heaven, Ancestry

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• Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Running, Errors, Goal

  Friedrich Schiller (2015). “The Works of Frederick Schiller: Top Classic of German”, p.3589, 谷月社

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• He, that noble prize possessing He that boasts a friend that's true, He whom woman's love is blessing, Let him join the chorus too!

  Friedrich Schiller

  Blessing, Love Is, Chorus

  Friedrich Schiller (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Schiller (Illustrated)”, p.84, Delphi Classics

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• Emulation is a noble and just passion, full of appreciation.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Appreciation, Passion, Role Models

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• The best innovations - both socially and economically - come from the pursuit of ideals that are noble and timeless: joy, wisdom, beauty, truth, equality, community, sustainability and, most of all, love. These are the things we live for, and the innovations that really make a difference are the ones that are life-enhancing. And that’s why the heart of innovation is a desire to re-enchant the world.

  Gary Hamel

  Heart, Differences, Community

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• Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Pride, Names, Receiving

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• Lady ---- is safely delivered of a son, to the great joy of that noble family. The expression, of a woman's having brought her husband a son, seems to be a proper and cautious one; for it is never said, from whence.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Husband, Son, Expression

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.325, Oxford University Press

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• Used with due abstinence, hope acts as a healthful tonic; intemperately indulged, as an enervating opiate. The visions of future triumph, which at first animate exertion, if dwelt upon too intently, will usurp the place of the stern reality; and, noble objects will be contemplated, not for their own inherent worth, but on account of the day-dreams they engender. Thus hope, aided by imagination, makes one man a hero, another a somnambulist, and a third a lunatic; while it renders them all enthusiasts.

  James Fitzjames Stephen

  Dream, Hope, Hero

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• I count this thing to be grandly true: That a noble deed is a step toward God-- Lifting the soul from the common clod To a purer air and a broader view.

  J. G. Holland

  Air, Views, Soul

  J.G. HOLLAND (1872). “THE MARBLE PROPHECY AND OTHER POEMS.”, p.53

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• He is like to be mistaken who makes choice of a covetous man for a friend, or relieth upon the reed of narrow and poltroon friendship. Pitiful things are only to be found in the cottages of such breasts; but bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty and generous honesty are the gems of noble minds, wherein (to derogate from none) the true, heroic English gentleman hath no peer.

  Thomas Browne

  Honesty, Men, Choices

  Sir Thomas Browne (1835). “Sir Thomas Browne's Works: Repertorium. A letter to a friend. Christian morals. Certain miscellany tracts. Unpublished papers”, p.79

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• Suicide is not to fear death, but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave act of valour to contemn death; but when life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live; and herein religion hath taught us a noble example, for all the valiant acts of Curtius, Scarvola, or Codrus, do not parallel or match that one of Job.

  Thomas Browne

  Suicide, Jobs, Taught Us

  Sir Thomas Browne (1845). “Religio Medici: Together with a Letter to a Friend on the Death of His Intimate Friend and Christian Morals”, p.112

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• I wish popularity, but it is that popularity which follows; not that which is run after. It is that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends, by noble means.

  William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield

  Running, Mean, Justice

  "Case of John Wilkes", 19 How. St. Tr. 1112, 1113; 8. C. 4 Burr. Part IV. 2562, 1763.

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