Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Nobility
If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy.
From the Latin of Böethius.
Inquinat egregios adjuncta superbia mores.
The noblest character is stained by the addition of pride.
Claudianus—De Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augustii Panegyris. 305.
Ay, these look like the workmanship of heaven;
This is the porcelain clay of human kind,
And therefore cast into these noble moulds.
Dryden—Don Sebastian. Act I. Sc. 1.
O lady, nobility is thine, and thy form is the reflection of thy nature!
Euripides—Ion. 238.
There are epidemics of nobleness as well as epidemics of disease.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects. Calvinism.
Ein edler Mensch zieht edle Menschen an,
Und weiss sie fest zu halten, wie ihr thut.
A noble soul alone can noble souls attract;
And knows alone, as ye, to hold them.
Goethe—Torquato Tasso. I. 1. 59.
Il sangue nobile è un accidente della fortuna; le azioni nobili caratterizzano il grande.
Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions characterize the great.
Goldoni—Pamela. I. 6.
Par nobile fratrum.
A noble pair of brothers.
Horace—Satires. II. 3. 243.
Fond man! though all the heroes of your line
Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine
In proud display; yet take this truth from me—
Virtue alone is true nobility!
Juvenal—Satire VIII. L. 29. Gifford’s trans. “Virtus sola nobilitat,” is the Latin of last line.
Noblesse oblige.
There are obligations to nobility.
Comte de Laborde, in a notice to the French Historical Society in 1865, attributes the phrase to Duc de Levis, who used it in 1808, apropos of the establishment of the nobility.
Be noble in every thought
And in every deed!
Longfellow—Christus. The Golden Legend. Pt. II.
Noble by birth, yet nobler by great deeds.
Longfellow—Tales of a Wayside Inn. Pt. III. The Student’s Tale. Emma and Eginhard. L. 82.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
Lowell—Sonnet IV.
Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But leave us still our old nobility.
Lord John Manners—England’s Trust. Pt. III. L. 227.
Be aristocracy the only joy:
Let commerce perish—let the world expire.
Modern Gulliver’s Travels. P. 192. (Ed. 1796).
His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for’s power to thunder.
Coriolanus. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 255.
This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
Julius Cæsar. Act V. Sc. 5. L. 68.
Better not to be at all
Than not be noble.
Tennyson—The Princess. Pt. II. L. 79.
Whoe’er amidst the sons
Of reason, valor, liberty, and virtue
Displays distinguished merit, is a noble
Of Nature’s own creating.
Thomson—Coriolanus. Act III. Sc. 3.
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise:
The fool or knave that wears a title lies.
Young—Love of Fame. Satire I. L. 145.