Noble Quotes - page 43
Socrates is not just expounding noble ideas in a vacuum. He is in the middle of a war between those who think truth is absolute and those who think truth is relative. He is fighting that war with everything he has. The Sophists are the enemy.
Now Plato's hatred of the Sophists makes sense. He and Socrates are defending the Immortal Principle of the Cosmologists against what they consider to be the decadence of the Sophists. Truth. Knowledge. That which is independent of what anyone thinks about it. The ideal that Socrates died for. The ideal that Greece alone possesses for the first time in the history of the world. It is still a very fragile thing. It can disappear completely. Plato abhors and damns the Sophists without restraint, not because they are low and immoral people-there are obviously much lower and more immoral people in Greece he completely ignores. He damns them because they threaten mankind's first beginning grasp of the idea of truth. That's what it is all about.
Robert M. Pirsig
Truth has noble effects. Truth is the seed of the new birth. God does not regenerate us by miracles or revelations, but by the word of truth (James 1:18). As truth is the breeder of grace, so it is the feeder of it (1Ti 4:6). Truth sanctifies: "Sanctify them through Thy truth" (John 17:17).
Thomas Watson (Puritan)
Ah, that Time could touch a form
That could show what Homer's age
Bred to be a hero's wage.
'Were not all her life but a storm,
Would not painters pain a form
Of such noble lines,' I said,
'Such a delicate high head,
All that sternness amid charm,
All that sweetness amid strength?
Ah, but peace that comes at length,
Came when Time had touched her form.
William Butler Yeats
He pleads further for the attention of the philosophers to the productions of their humbler countrymen, by reminding them that many of the phenomena of trades are not only parts of the history of Nature, but some of them may be reckoned among its more noble and useful parts, for they show us Nature in motion,-the most instructive condition in which we can behold her."
Robert Boyle
No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam; but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior, the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned, happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity, there he died in glory and peace. While it stands, the latest generations of the grateful children of America will make this pilgrimage to it as to a shrine; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot.
Edward Everett
the great act of emancipation of 800,000 human beings has shown to the world that the African race are not only capable of taking care of themselves, but are capable of enjoying peacefully as much liberty and as much freedom as the white men. Thus it has done far more towards the cause of freedom - towards emancipation from all kinds of slavery - than the Declaration of Independence did. For in spite of that Declaration - in sadness and sorrow do I say it - the United States of America are guilty of outrage and recreancy to their own principles in retaining slavery; while Great Britain, without that Declaration, having yet a great deal of oppression and tyranny in her midst, has shown a noble example to the world in emancipating all her chattel slaves.
Ernestine Rose
I go for emancipation of all kinds - white and black, man and woman. Humanity's children are, in my estimation, all one and the same family, inheriting the same earth; therefore there should be no slaves of any kind among them. There are ties that bind man to man far stronger than the ties of nation - than the political and commercial ties - an even stronger than the ties of relationship; and these are the ties of humanity. Humanity, the great mother of all, has thrown around us ties, sympathies and feelings which are more endearing, more effectual, and more noble, than any other than have ever bound man to man.
Ernestine Rose
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciples. A noble artist, he has visions of excellence and revelations of beauty, which he has neither impersonated in character, nor embodied in words. His life and teachings are but studies for yet nobler ideals.
Amos Bronson Alcott
When the law interferes with people's pursuit of their own values, they will try to find a way around. They will evade the law, they will break the law, or they will leave the country. Few of us believe in a moral code that justifies forcing people to give up much of what they produce to finance payments to persons they do not know for purposes they may not approve of. When the law contradicts what most people regard as moral and proper, they will break the law-whether the law is enacted in the name of a noble ideal such as equality or in the naked interest of one group at the expense of another. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice and morality, will lead people to obey the law.
Milton Friedman
It is sublime as night and a breathless ocean. It contains every religious sentiment, all the grand ethics, which visit in turn each noble poetic mind .... It is of no use to put away the book if! trust myself in the woods or in a boat upon the pond. Nature makes a Brahmin of me presently: eternal compensation, unfathomable power, unbroken silence .... This is her creed. Peace, she saith to me, and purity and absolute abandonment - these panaceas expiate all sin and bring you to the beatitude of the Eight Gods.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Yachappa Nayak, the Hindu noble to whom I have referred earlier in my narrative, on seeing that the Mughal army after repeated orders from the Emperor, was bent on the destruction of the Hindu temples, left Mughal service and entered the territory of Gingee with his men. From there, he wrote to all the Hindu Princes, urging them to unite against the enemy of their community and religion.” ( p. 1256)
Aurangzeb
First and foremost, he needs to be fairly treated. To have the truth [told] about him, the whole truth if practicable, but at all events to nothing but the truth; to have fair opportunities to labor, and to get honest pay for [it, to] have a chance to become educated and to develop whatever there is [in] him, in good and noble directions, in short to have a fair field.Next, and mainly, our colored brethren need the gospel.I shall not draw any terrible picture of their deplorable state, with a good deal of red in the brush, for two reasons-first, they would not be true; and second, there is no need of them. There is enough to rouse any thoughtful man to action in the fact that here in our midst is to be found a nation with in a nation, twice as great in number today as the whole American people were one hundred years ago, when our independence was achieved. They are said to number now not less than seven millions...
Basil Manly Jr.
It is sometimes helpful to differentiate between the God of Miracles and the God of Order. When scientists use the word God, they usually mean the God of Order. ...The God of Miracles intervenes in our affairs, performs miracles, destroys wicked cities, smites enemy armies, drowns the Pharaoh's troops, and avenges the pure and noble. ...This is not to say that miracles cannot happen, only that they are outside what is commonly called science.
Michio Kaku
Barack Obama's naïve, almost schoolyard-level attitude toward international politics is on display again today, as he says the US needs to set a better example for Russia: Obama: Russia, U.S. should not ‘charge into' other countries. This is normal "progressive" thinking, and you find these bizarre assumptions everywhere in leftist circles: if we just achieve some noble ideal of behavior, that alone will be enough to usher in a new era of peace and global good will - and in the meantime, it's important to let our adversaries know that we're not perfect and we understand their feelings.
Charles Foster Johnson
God knows I have little interest in animals, but I do not like to see them insulted. I used to feel the same thing in the days when I was a frequent visitor at the London Zoo; in the lion house there were always ninnies who mocked the captive lions. I often wished that the bars would turn to butter, and that the great, noble beasts would practise their particular form of wit upon the little, ignoble men.
Robertson Davies
Christ, one of the great men of humanity, condemned Judah with the sharpest words. He cursed and damned their devilish goals. His whole life was an antisemitic struggle against Judah and its methods. The Jew Paul, born Saul, also called Schaul, transformed the honest, noble and elevated goals of the founder of the Christian religion into its very opposite, making them serve Jewish purposes. That may not dim the light of this great man of human history.
Robert Ley
Good sirs, take heart: -
We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make Death proud to take us. Come, away:
This case of that huge spirit now is cold. -
Ah, women, women! - come; we have no friend
But resolution, and the briefest end.
Antony and Cleopatra
... nothing has for a long time afforded us so much pleasure, as the rich promise of dramatic excellence unfolded in this production of our Noble Exile. Without question, no such tragedy as Marino Faliero has appeared in English, since the day when Otway also was inspired to his masterpiece by the interests of a Venetian story and a Venetian conspiracy.
The story of which Lord Byron has possessed himself is, we think, by far the finer of the two,-and we say possessed, because we believe he has adhered almost to the letter of the transactions as they really took place.
John Wilson (Scottish writer)
O noble Chaucer, whos pullisshyd eloquence
Oure Englysshe rude so fresshely hath set out,
That bounde ar we with all deu reverence,
With all our strength that we can brynge about,
To owe to yow our servyce, and more if we mowte!
But what sholde I say? Ye wote what I entende,
Whiche glad am to please and loth to offende.
John Skelton
