Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.

Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.

The mob is a sort of bear; while your ring is through its nose, it will even dance under your cudgel; but should the ring slip, and you lose your hold, the brute will turn and rend you.

Dr. Johnson has said that the chief glory of a country arises from its authors. But then that is only as they are oracles of wisdom; unless they teach virtue, they are more worthy of a halter than of the laurel.

I never yet heard man or woman much abused that I was not inclined to think the better of them, and to transfer the suspicion or dislike to the one who found pleasure in pointing out the defects of another.

Imparting knowledge is only lighting other men's candles at our lamp without depriving ourselves of any flame.

People do not always understand the motives of sublime conduct, and when they are astonished they are very apt to think they ought to be alarmed. The truth is none are fit judges of greatness but those who are capable of it.

Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray; nay, when it strikes on a kindred heart, like the converged light on a mirror, it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected till it is shared.

The best manner of avenging ourselves is by not resembling him who has injured us.

Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray nay when it strikes on a kindred heart like the converged light on a mirror it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected till it is shared.

Nobility without virtue is a fine setting without a gem.

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition.

I believe in the nobility of entertaining people and I take great, great pride that people are willing to give me two or three hours of their busy lives.

War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.

Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

The human element, the human flaw and the human nobility - those are the reasons that chess matches are won or lost.

In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

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.

The German people is not marked by original sin, but by original nobility.

Virtue is the truest nobility.

Strip the proud nobility of their bloated estates, reduce them to a level with plain republicans, send forth to labor, and teach their children to enter the workshops or handle the plow, and you will thus humble proud traitors.

True revolutionaries are like God - they create the world in their own image. Our awesome responsibility to ourselves, to our children, and to the future is to create ourselves in the image of goodness, because the future depends on the nobility of our imaginings.

For as long as this nation has known war, we have embraced the heroes it has produced. Americans have rightfully noted the honor and nobility of courage under hostile fire and thanked those who perished in their defense.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.

The army is the true nobility of our country.

Now, my father Matthias was not only eminent on account of is nobility, but had a higher commendation on account of his righteousness, and was in great reputation in Jerusalem, the greatest city we have.

Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.

True nobility is exempt from fear.

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.

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

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

I was no Marie Antoinette. I was not born to nobility, but I had a human right to nobility.

What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.

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.

You have the right to kill me, but you don't have the right to judge me. That's life. There's nobility in that. There's focus. It's genuine. It's crystal and it's pure and it's available to everybody, so just shut your traps and put down your McDonalds, your vaccines, your Us Weekly, your TMZ and the rest of it.

Our awesome responsibility to ourselves, to our children, and to the future is to create ourselves in the image of goodness, because the future depends on the nobility of our imaginings.

It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now.

It shows nobility to be willing to increase your debt to a man to whom you already owe much.

There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to complement the other.

I wanted to be Katharine Hepburn-ish - there was a bit of nobility about her.

Let us search into the records of Holy Writ, if out of this their great charter, there be not a seal grant of a lesser, though like privilege, and this by virtue of Christ, in that we have the honour to be accounted Abraham's seed as truly as they.

Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.

Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines.