Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god.
We do not arrive at the sublime by degrees, for infinite distances separate it even from the beautiful.[Alternate translation:]You do not reach the sublime by degrees; the distance between it and the merely beautiful is infinite.[On n’arrive point au sublime par degrés; des distances infinies le séparent même de ce qui n’est que beau.]
They might insist that they were ready to aid their fellow-apes of the same troop in many ways, to risk their lives for them, and to take charge of their orphans; but they would be forced to acknowledge that disinterested love for all living creatures, the most noble attribute of man, was quite beyond their comprehension.
Noble people don’t do things for the money, they simply have money, and that’s what allows them to be noble. They don’t really have to think about it much; they sprout benevolent acts the way trees sprout leaves.
Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them.[La générosité n’est souvent que l’aspect intérieur que prennent nos sentiments égoïstes quand nous ne les avons pas encore nommés et classés.]
Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.
His nature is too noble for the world. He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, or Jove for’s power to thunder.
A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.
