quotations about nobility
Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding nobility of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog, rather than a spur.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The nobly born must nobly meet his fate.
EURIPIDES
fragment, Alcmene
Noble persons have the best capacities; for whether they give themselves to goodness or ungraciousness, they do in either excel, as none of the common sort of people can come anything nigh them.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
As for nobility in particular persons; it is a reverend thing, to see an ancient castle or building, not in decay; or to see a fair timber tree, sound and perfect. How much more, to behold an ancient noble family, which has stood against the waves and weathers of time! For new nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time. Those that are first raised to nobility, are commonly more virtuous, but less innocent, than their descendants; for there is rarely any rising, but by a commixture of good and evil arts. But it is reason, the memory of their virtues remain to their posterity, and their faults die with themselves. Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry; and he that is not industrious, envieth him that is. Besides, noble persons cannot go much higher; and he that standeth at a stay, when others rise, can hardly avoid motions of envy. On the other side, nobility extinguisheth the passive envy from others, towards them; because they are in possession of honor. Certainly, kings that have able men of their nobility, shall find ease in employing them, and a better slide into their business; for people naturally bend to them, as born in some sort to command.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Nobility", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
Rascals are always sociable--more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company. He prefers solitude more and more, and, in course of time, comes to see that, with few exceptions, the world offers no choice beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the other.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Collected Essays
To men and women there falls the task of exploring truth with their reason, and in this their nobility consists.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Encyclical, Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998
It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement.
AYN RAND
The Fountainhead
Persons of noble blood, are less envied in their rising. For it seemeth but right done to their birth. Besides, there seemeth not much added to their fortune; and envy is as the sunbeams, that beat hotter upon a bank, or steep rising ground, than upon a flat. And for the same reason, those that are advanced by degrees, are less envied than those that are advanced suddenly and per saltum.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Envy", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
He most lives, who thinks most, feels noblest, acts the best.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
Whoe'er amidst the sons
Of reason, valor, liberty, and virtue
Displays distinguished merit, is a noble
Of Nature's own creating.
JAMES THOMSON
Coriolanus
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Building of the Ship"
If the human race has ever invented an institution more effective in the propagation of intellectual and ethical cripples than the nobility, I have yet to stumble across it.
DANIEL POLANSKY
Low Town
Noble by birth, yet nobler by great deeds.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Tales of a Wayside Inn
Nobility is pre-eminent as a value which distinguishes between man and man, and indeed even in the ethos itself, in the fundamental disposition. Its opposite is the usual, the ordinary, the well-worn track, in so far as upon it goodness as well as badness can be found. By its very nature the noble is not everybody's concern. It divides men--not indeed according to birth and social status, but according to their innermost disposition.
NICOLAI HARTMANN
Moral Values
She had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones. Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside.
GEORGE ORWELL
1984
Let states that aim at greatness, take heed how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast. For that maketh the common subject, grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect but the gentleman's laborer.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of the True Greatness Of Kingdoms And Estates", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral