Noble Quotes - Page 24

• We humans think we are smart, but an orchid, for example, knows how to produce noble, symmetrical flowers, and a snail knows how to make a beautiful, well-proportioned shell. Compared with their knowledge, ours is not worth much at all. We should bow deeply before the orchid and the snail and join our palms reverently before the monarch butterfly and the magnolia tree. The feeling of respect for all species will help us recognize the noblest nature in ourselves.

  Nhat Hanh

  Beautiful, Respect, Nature

  Thich Nhat Hanh “Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings”, Orbis Books

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• Which is more worthwhile earning: a large fortune or the esteem and gratitude of the nation? This question is prompted anew by the death of ex-Secretary of the Interior [Franklin K.] Lane. He remained in public service, doing most noble work, until his means became absolutely exhausted, and he died before having had the opportunity to reaccumulate any bank account.... He died leaving no estate whatsoever. Is what he did leave more to be desired, more to be coveted, than a fortune reaching into six or seven figures?

  B. C. Forbes

  Gratitude, Mean, Opportunity

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• Our life is what we make it. An insignificant game or a noble trial; a dream or a reality; a play of the senses worn out in selfish use, and flying "swifter than a weaver's shuttle," or an ascension of the soul, by daily duties and unfaltering faith, to more spiritual relations and to loftier toils.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Life, Dream, Spiritual

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• I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Summer, Envy, Cages

  'In Memoriam A. H. H.' (1850) canto 27

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• To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her; for indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and aimable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes man.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Passion, Men, Years

  'Idylls of the King' (1842-85) 'Guinevere' (1859) l. 472

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• If a man is endowed with a noble and courageous soul, if he is painstaking, proud, ambitious, without meanness, of a profound a deep-seated intelligence, I dare assert that he lacks nothing to be neglected by the great and men in high office, who fear, more than other men, those whom they cannot dominate.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Office, Profound

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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• When two friends part they should lock up each other's secrets and exchange keys. The truly noble mind has no resentments.

  Diogenes

  Keys, Two Friends, Secret

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• And a noble life is one ordered by, and oriented to, a transcendent moral code, not just one's own concept of existence and meaning and truth. ...if we want a society that reveres life, that defends the family, and that discourages delinquency and promotes decency, we cannot force a privatization of religion; we must allow the truth-claims of religious faith to be uttered aloud in the public square.

  Rick Santorum

  Religious, Squares, Religion

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• never was there a thoroughly noble nature without some romance in it.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Romance

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• Being a mother is a noble status, right? Right. So why does it change when you put 'unwed' or 'welfare' in front of it?

  Florynce Kennedy

  Mother, Doe, Welfare

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• A noble cause doth ease much a grievous case.

  Philip Sidney

  Ease, Causes, Cases

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.121

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• The general goodness, which is nourished in noble hearts makes every one think that strength of virtue to be in another whereof they find assured foundation in themselves.

  Philip Sidney

  Heart, Thinking, Foundation

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.23

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• Nothing more excites to everything noble and generous, than virtuous love.

  Henry Home, Lord Kames

  Love, Virtuous, Generous

  Henry HOME (Lord Kames.) (1775). “Introduction to the art of thinking. Third edition. Enlarged with additional maxims and illustrations. [By Henry Home, Lord Kames.]”, p.22

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• It is a shame for a man to desire honor because of his noble progenitors, and not to deserve it by his own virtue.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Men, Honor, Desire

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• Providence has decreed that those common acquisitions, money, gems, plate, noble mansions, and dominion, should be sometimes bestowed on the indolent and unworthy; but those things which constitute our true riches, and which are properly our own, must be procured by our own labor.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Acquisition, Dominion, Riches

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• To be faithful to your instincts and the impulses that carry you in the direction of the excellence you most desire and value ... surely that is to lead the noble life.

  George Edward Woodberry

  Faithful, Excellence, Desire

  George Edward Woodberry (1933). “Selected letters of George Edward Woodberry”

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• A good short story is a work of art which daunts us in proportion to its brevity.... No inspiration is too noble for it; no amountof hard work is too severe for it.

  Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

  Art, Inspiration, Hard Work

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• The love of solitude, when cultivated in the morn of life, elevates the mind to a noble independence, but to acquire the advantages which solitude is capable of affording, the mind must not be impelled to it by melancholy and discontent, but by a real distaste to the idle pleasures of the world, a rational contempt for the deceitful joys of life, and just apprehensions of being corrupted and seduced by its insinuating and destructive gayeties.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Real, Joy, Solitude

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• It is, then, the strife of all honorable men and women of the twentieth century to see that in the future competition of the races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true; that we may be able to preserve for future civilization all that is really fine and noble and strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and imprudence and cruelty.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Beautiful, Strong, Mean

  "The Souls of Black Folk". Book by W. E. B. Du Bois, 1903.

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• It is the minority that has stood in the vain of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble in the history of the world.

  John Bartholomew Gough

  War, History, Accomplishment

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• Gamaun is a dainty steed,
  Strong, black, and of a noble breed,
  Full of fire, and full of bone,
  With all his line of fathers known;
  Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
  But blown abroad by the pride within;
  His mane is like a river flowing,
  And his eyes like embers glowing
  In the darkness of the night,
  And his pace as swift as light.

  Bryan Procter

  Strong, Horse, Father

  Bryan Waller Procter, “The Blood Horse”

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• The deeds of love are less questionable than any action of an individual can be, for, it being founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which they are associated must be pure and noble indeed, for innocence and purity can have no equal. In this relation we deal with one whom we respect more religiously even than we respect our better selves, and we shall necessarily conduct as in the presence of God. What presence can be more awful to the lover than the presence of his beloved?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Respect, Sex, Party

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.65, Yale University Press

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• When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Appreciate, Done, Deeds

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.239, David M Gross

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• Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness thanothers. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Country, Names, Numbers

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• I did not find Liverpool ugly. Her stately public buildings, broad streets, public squares, and noble statues redeem her from the charge.

  M. E. W. Sherwood

  Squares, Ugly, Building

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