Quotes About Nobility

During her childhood, Jane had been "placed out," the term for children from middle-income families who were sent to live with members of the nobility, or the offspring of an aristocrat who were sent to the palace to learn the manners and customs of royalty, to better cement the family's social connections and pave the way for a spectacular marriage.

It is not by his faults, but by his excellences, that we measure a great man.

There is the family of our birth and then there is a more noble world to which we really belong; the richness of this ideal world is often proportional to the poverty of the real, as personal grandiosity is proportional to shame.

Social rank has always been one of the pricier commodities sold in the great American department store, and the ceaseless revision of what constitutes society gives rise to the great American comedy that has been playing continuous performances since the beginning of the Republic. As one generation of parvenu rich acquires the means to buy the patents of nobility, it looks down upon the next generation of arrivistes as clubfooted upstarts.

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.

I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passe abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.

There's nobility in hard work, traditional values.

Since you refused the good grace to die on delivery, Rathain has got a living prince.

But a parcel of walled soil does not make the heart of a ruler or define the nobility of a people!

The last infirmity of a noble mind»: la última flaqueza de una mente noble. Es lo que dice Milton de la vanidad. ¿Qué le parece? Hasta los mejores hombres tienen su granito de vanidad. Lo cual quiere decir que, cuanto peor es un hombre, más vanidad tiene, y que los peores, como Ferrer, son sólo vanidad.

Bresson est à part dans ce métier terrible. Il s'exprime cinématographiquement comme un poète par la plume. Vaste est l'obstacle entre sa noblesse, son silence, son sérieux, ses rêves et tout un monde où ils passent pour de l'hésitation et de la manie.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one only thinks to get a living.

Imagine anyone asking Henry VIII or Elizabeth to settle a bill!

Il y a une noblesse dans le réalisme à laquelle l'esprit des plus nobles femmes ne parvient jamais. Le réel ne les incline point.

Whelks are strange and comforting. They have no notion of community life and they breed very quietly. But they have a strong sense of personal dignity. Even lying face down in a tray of vinegar there is something noble about a whelk. Which cannot be said for everybody.

If an honest man is the noblest work of God, then Mr. Lincoln's title to high nobility is clear and unquestioned.

Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.

All work which is necessary ennobles him who performs it. Only one thing is shameful - to contribute nothing to the community.

In our nation there are two classes of nobility: the law-abiding workers and the law-abiding employers who sustain each other.

The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.

Having children, entering the realm of parents and parenthood, changes our relationship to the world in ways we could not have anticipated and might not have signed up for. Before I had children, for example, I believed strongly in the nobility of suffering.

The great majority of the nobility and gentry of England clung to the doctrine and ceremonies of the ancient church, and yet were united in determination to oppose the papal claims.

Originally, I thought the story of the Alamo was all these men defending their liberty when they could have left, knowing they were going to die. That's without a doubt what appealed to me, the romance and the nobility. But, as in life, the more you dig the more you find out that things weren't quite like that.

There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.