Noble sentiment

“ Keep truth thy companion, and honour thy guide.
If a noble—remember, though ancient thy blood,
The heart truly noble is that which is good;
Should a stain of dishonour encrimson thy brow,
Thou art slave to the peasant that sweats at the plough.
Be noble as man—and, whatever betide,
Keep truth thy companion, and honour thy guide.
If lover or husband—be faithful and kind,
For doubting is death to the sensitive mind;
Love's exquisite passion a breath may destroy ”

“ While the outside of this heap of fragments is white, with tints of green, touched here and there with what seems to be the most delicate bronze and gilding; every crevice, where there is a shadow lurking, is a blue, the purity and softness of which cannot be described nor easily imagined. To one who has any feeling for color, it has a sentiment as sweet as any thing in all visible nature. A pure, white surface, like this fine opaque ice, seen through deep shade produces blue, and such a blue as one sees in the stainless sky when it is full of warmth and light. ”

“ Elizabeth glanced quickly at Elsie, with a little trouble in her face, but the girl laughed, and replied—
"Oh yes, he will; Bessie is his ideal—he will never think of poor little me."
"Family affection is so sweet!" added Mrs. Harrington. Elsie made a grimace, and hastened to change the conversation, for there was nothing she dreaded so much as the widow's attempt at romance and sentiment. ”

“ It is the human nobility and greatness that is the end, and that 'craves,' as the noble who is found wanting in it tells us, 'a noble cunning.' It is no single instrumentality that makes the apparatus of this culture and cure. ”

“ It is the nature of the noble and the good and the wise that they impart to us of their nobility and their goodness and their wisdom while they live, making it natural for us to breathe the air they breathe and giving us confidence in our own untested powers. ”

“ A noble ambition seems to linger in his soul and transfigure his countenance until we see the light of joy and nobleness shining there. What a contrast the dejected look of those who travel the paths of ease and self-indulgence affords! ”

“ Is there anything, after all, so grand as a pure and unsullied life—a fair picture, with no ugly shadows lurking in the background—a smooth poem, with no crooked, halting line to mar the verse—a noble book, with no unholy page—a simple story, such as our children may read? Can any greatness be greater? can any nobility be more truly noble? ”

“ I thank you, but at the same time I congratulate you; for it is a trait in the nobleness in our human nature to be able thus to snatch ourselves from the vulgar pre-occupations of life, to contemplate the truth on those serene heights where it reveals itself to all who seek it with an upright heart. Cease not to love these noble studies, which touch upon all that is most exalted and most precious in us! ”

“ A noble soul spreads even over a face in which the architectonic beauty is wanting an irresistible grace, and often even triumphs over the natural disfavor. All the movements which proceed from a noble soul are easy, sweet, and yet animated. ”

“ Wake the strong chords of life to vibration.
Aye; right noble, in good sooth, seemed he battling for the truth,
When he poured the full tide of his scorn
Down upon the tyrant's track, like an Alpine cataract:
All! such men wait an Æon to be born.
So he stood before us then, one of God's eternal men,
Flashing eye, and hero mould of stature,
With a glory and a light circling round his brow of might,
That revealed his right royal kingly nature. ”

“ I have ventured to believe that a noble people has a heart open to noble emotions—that such a heart is not dead to pity for the unfortunate, to sympathy with the brave—to the love of glory inspiring to great deeds, and to the love of power, with the intention to use it for the public good. ”

“ To noble and aspiring spirits, no homily to truth and honour and fair ambition is more eloquent than the mute and melancholy canvas from which our fathers, made, by death, our household gods, contemplate us still. ”

“ Casually, we admire the aspirations of a noble mind which looks above and beyond the grovelling littleness of humanity, and strives to reach a goal where dwell the nobler virtues, studded with the jewels of their worth and goodness. ”

“ But when he met with a spirit congenial to his own, when he found that he could love and could trust, all the deep, the noble, the generous feelings of his original nature burst through every band of times, and circumstances, and nation, and habit ”

“ It was daily dinned into my cars that the little things of life were the noblest, and that all the great people I mooned about said the same. I usually retorted to the effect that I was well aware that it was noble, and that I could write as good an essay on it as any philosopher. It was all very well for great people to point out the greatness of the little, empty, humdrum life. ”

“ He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet,
By heraldry prov'd valiant or discreet.
With what a decent pride he throws his eyes
Above the man by three descents less wise!
If virtues at his noble hands you crave,
You bid him raise his fathers from the grave.
Men should press forward in fame's glorious chase;
Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.
Let high birth triumph! What can be more great?
Nothing—but merit in a low estate.
To virtue's humblest son let none prefer
Vice, though descended from the conqueror. ”

“ Oh! what a noble being is an honest, upright, fearless, generous, manly man! How such men endear our firesides, and adorn and bless our homes. How sweet is their encouragement of our timid efforts in every good word and work, and how grateful we are to be loved by these noble comforters, and how utterly wretched and sad this world would be, deprived of their honored and gracious presence. ”

“ Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise. ”

“ Now, this devotion of which we speak was that of men of noble, elevated hearts, who felt themselves bound by their fathers' past, and who gave their honor, their fortunes, and their life in support of the old adage, Noblesse oblige. ”

“ One cannot be noble, he had come to perceive, at large; one must be noble to an end. To make human life, collectively and in detail, a thing more comprehensive, more beautiful, more generous and coherent than it is to-day seemed to him the fundamental intention of all nobility. ”

“ So long as there is a love for nobility in the human heart men and women of nobility will be placed in power. Life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which a man possesseth but in following the pathway of a noble purpose. ”

“ You have had many distinguished men here, and their themes have often been noble, but with which of those themes has not my art immemorial and perpetual associations? Is it not for ever identified with the noblest instincts and occupations of the human mind? ”

“ Yet we, believing in the only correct interpretation of noblesse oblige, and that he only is truly noble who acts nobly, have only pity for the poor soul who here laid down life's weary burden twenty-two years ago at the age of seventy-two, and scorn for him who rests in an honored grave, and is idealized among the world's heroes. ”

“ COULD it have been the Soul of Man and none higher that gave spoken and written word to the noblest precepts of human nature? For the deeper you sound it the more noble it seems, in spite of all the wrong, injustice, sin, sorrow, pain, religion, atheism, and cynics in the world. ”

“ That, in its true condition, the noblest, the most cultured intellect, and the loveliest, sublimest moral and emotional qualities, together weave the web that clothes the world’s great soul with imperishable beauty. ”

“ The desire of extending our fame by noble deeds, and of increasing the good opinion of mankind by a dignified conduct and real greatness of soul, confers advantages which neither illustrious birth, elevated rank, nor great fortune can bestow; and which, even on the throne, are only to be acquired by a life of exemplary virtue, and an anxious attention to the suffrages of posterity. ”

“ What are the necessary characteristics of a truly noble soul? What are the chief obstacles that stand in the way of this extraordinary guidance of the spirit? And finally, is it possible in our day, and is it worth the trouble, to strive after this goal? ”

“ If He has chosen to take the men before their time, He has had a good purpose in it and I think that purpose has been shown. So don’t give up to despair in this moment, but be the brave, noble King which we have all learned to love. ”

“ It is not the wall of stone without
That makes a building small or great,
But the soul's light shining round about,
And the faith that overcometh doubt,
And the love that stronger is than hate.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. ———
THE NOBLY BORN
Who counts himself as nobly born
Is noble in despite of place;
And honors are but brands to one
Who wears them not with nature's grace.
The prince may sit with clown or churl
Nor feel himself disgraced thereby;
But he who has but small esteem
Husbands that little carefully.
Then, be thou peasant, be thou peer,
Count it still more thou art thine own. ”

“ A thousand Sir Rolands shall lay lance in rest, and Fear, Avarice, Pleasure, and Ambition shall go down in the dust before your colors.
What noble deeds were we not ripe for in the days when we loved? What noble lives could we not have lived for her sake? Our love was a religion we could have died for. It was no mere human creature like ourselves that we adored. ”

“ If society were transparent, the noble would everywhere be gladly received and accredited, and would not be asked for his day’s work, but would be felt as benefit, inasmuch as he was noble. That were his duty and stint,—to keep himself pure and purifying, the leaven of his nation. ”

“ I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be. ”

“ The noble thought that gave unity to all our knowledge, harmony to all our designs;—the thought that the progress of history had brought on the era, the tissue of prophecies pointed out the spot, where humanity was, at last, to have a fair chance to know itself, and all men be born free and equal for the eagle's flight, flutters as if about to leave the breast, which, deprived of it, will have no more a nation, no more a home on earth. ”

“ Has the noble, in his domain, or the king in his palace, any more true happiness than he? none; unless it can be shown that happiness is to be found in stone walls and furniture and land, in names and titles, rather than in the tender affections of the human heart. ”

“ Everybody knows that its noble origin is virtually lost in the mist of ages, and that its power equals that of kings. Its magnificence, its wealth, and the splendour of its establishment are such as to convey but a faint idea to those who have not seen them, and those who have are tempted to consider them as so many parts of a fairy dream induced by the reading of some fabulous story. ”

“ Gradually the old magnificent life had changed, the splendid young noble had become the grave man of affairs. Still not much over thirty, and endowed with a warm and joyous temperament, used to wealth and power, pleasure and luxury, he found himself about to take up a position in which all these things must be foregone. ”

“ As to the world, I hope that I shall be endued by Heaven with that presence of mind, that serene dignity in misfortune, that constitutes the character of a true nobleman; a dignity far beyond that of coronets; a nobility arising from the just principles of philosophy, refined and exalted by those of christianity. ”

“ Now and then we see noble men living apart from this vulgarity and scramble; some rich, some poor, but both content to live for noble aims, to pinch and spare for virtue, religion, for truth and right. Such men never fail from any age or land, but everywhere they are the exceptional men. ”

“ In that one maxim is concentrated whatever is noble in morality, sublime in religion, or unanswerable in truth. In that pursuit we have all scope for whatever is excellent in our hearts, and none for the petty passions which our nature is heir to. Thus engaged, whatever be our errors, there will be nobility, not weakness, in our remorse; whatever our failure, virtue, not selfishness, in our regret; and, in success, vanity itself will become holy and triumph eternal. ”

“ Where was that noble spirit, that great master mind which for years had been unfolding the secrets of nature, and directing its unalterable laws into channels of usefulness for the benefit of untold generations to come? ”

“ IT is enough; one man alone upon earth have I found noble. Away from me for ever! Cold heart and mean spirit, you have lost what millions—empires—could not have bought, but which a single word truthfully and nobly spoken might have made your own to all eternity. ”

“ Again, all such actions as are in accord with what is fitting are noble; if, for instance, they are worthy of a man's ancestors or of his own previous achievements; for to obtain additional honor is noble and conduces to happiness. ”

“ The noble, in other words, the uncommon, element in the drama—nay, what is sublime in it—is not reached until the intellect is set to work, as opposed to the will; until it takes a free flight over all those passionate movements of the will, and makes them the subject of its contemplation. ”

“ Being noble, let us with even soul accept either lot, nor let fortune sway our behaviour, for it beseems us to receive equably difficult and delightsome days; let us pass the years of sorrow with the same countenance wherewith we took the years of joy. Let us do with brave hearts all the things that in our cups we boasted with sodden lips; let us keep the vows which we swore by highest Jove and the mighty gods. ”

“ The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character. ”