Quote: Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
Author: Edmund Burke 1729-1797, British Political Writer, Statesman
Quote: Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.
Author: Albert Camus 1913-1960, French Existential Writer
Quote: 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.
Author: Vicomte De Chateaubriand 1768-1848, French Politician, Writer
Quote: 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.
Author: David Lloyd George 1863-1945, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 1749-1832, German Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
Quote: I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.
Author: Oliver Goldsmith 1728-1774, Anglo-Irish Author, Poet, Playwright
Quote: There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Author: Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826, Third President of the USA
Quote: What is the use of your pedigrees?
Author: (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) Juvenal c.55-c.130, Roman Satirical Poet
Quote: 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.
Author: Georg C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799, German Physicist, Satirist
Quote: Lords are lordliest in their wine. Author: John Milton 1608-1674, British Poet
Quote: 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.
Author: Nancy Mitford 1904-1973, British Writer
Quote: 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.
Author: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 1689-1762, British Society Figure, Letter Writer
Quote: Aristocracy is always cruel.
Author: Wendell Phillips 1811-1884, American Reformer, Orator
Quote: A degenerate nobleman is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is underground.
Author: English Saying
Quote: Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.
Author: Solon 636?-558? B.C., Greek Statesman
Quote: 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?
Author: William M. Thackeray 1811-1863, Indian-born British Novelist
Quote: 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.
Author: Alexis De Tocqueville 1805-1859, French Social Philosopher
Quote: It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good -- and less trouble!
Author: Mark Twain 1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer
Quote: 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.
Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit
Quote: Those comfortably padded lunatic asylums which are known, euphemistically, as the stately homes of England.
Author: Virginia Woolf 1882-1941, British Novelist, Essayist