Aristocracy
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
Aristocracy
Burke, Edmund
1729-1797 British Political Writer Statesman
Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.
Aristocracy
Camus, Albert
1913-1960 French Existential Writer
Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority s, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.
Aristocracy
Chateaubriand, Vicomte De
1768-1848 French Politician Writer
A fully equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and dukes are just as great a terror — and they last longer.
Aristocracy
George, David Lloyd
1863-1945 British Statesman Prime Minister
All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.
Aristocracy
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
1749-1832 German Poet Dramatist Novelist
I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.
Aristocracy
Goldsmith, Oliver
1728-1774 Anglo-Irish Author Poet Playwright
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Aristocracy
Jefferson, Thomas
1743-1826 Third President of the USA
What is the use of your pedigrees?
Aristocracy
Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)
c55-c130 Roman Satirical Poet
Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.
Aristocracy
Lichtenberg, Georg C.
1742-1799 German Physicist Satirist
Lords are lordliest in their wine.
Aristocracy
Milton, John
1608-1674 British Poet
An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.
Aristocracy
Mitford, Nancy
1904-1973 British Writer
I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great Estates and Titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought only to be given to fools, for ‘Tis only to them that they are blessings.
Aristocracy
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley
1689-1762 British Society Figure Letter Writer
Aristocracy is always cruel.
Aristocracy
Phillips, Wendell
1811-1884 American Reformer Orator
A degenerate nobleman is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is underground.
Aristocracy
Saying, English
Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.
Aristocracy
Solon
636-558 BC Greek Statesman
If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men’s failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal’s natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?
Aristocracy
Thackeray, William M.
1811-1863 Indian-born British Novelist
Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth and which still has endless leisure to devote to nothing but banal enjoyments. All its great thoughts and passionate energy are things of the past, and nothing but a host of petty, gnawing vices now cling to it like worms to a corpse.
Aristocracy
Tocqueville, Alexis De
1805-1859 French Social Philosopher
It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good — and less trouble!
Aristocracy
Twain, Mark
1835-1910 American Humorist Writer
You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done.
Wilde, Oscar
1856-1900 British Author Wit
Those comfortably padded lunatic asylums which are known, euphemistically, as the stately homes of England.
Aristocracy
Woolf, Virginia
1882-1941 British Novelist Essayist