#aristocracy

She was simple, not being able to adorn herself, but she was unhappy, as one out of her class; for women belong to no caste, no race, their grace, their beauty and their charm serving them in place of birth and family. Their inborn finesse, their instinctive elegance, their suppleness of wit, are their only aristocracy, making some daughters of the people the equal of great ladies. ↗

— Guy de Maupassant

#class #beauty

There might be cheats or possible cheats amongst them, men who beat their wives, men with perverse instincts, greedy men, cowardly men, lying men; but the elegance of the room invested each one with a kind of aristocracy. ↗

— Ian Fleming

#cards #cheaters #elegance #men

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. ↗

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

#actual #any #aristocracy #cannot #decree

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#already #aristocracy #bid #birth #challenge

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#aristocracy #grounds #men #natural #talents

We stand a better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy. ↗

— Ezra Stiles

#better #better chance #chance #elective #hereditary

The old interests of aristocracy - the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war - faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilization. ↗

— Lytton Strachey

#aristocracy #background #chivalry #civilization #exalted

All day long the superior man is creatively active. ↗

— Fu Xi

#creation #maker #mastery #change

Ninety-nine per cent of traditional English literature concerns people who never have to worry about money at all. We always seem to be watching or reading about emotional crises among folk who live in a world of great fortune both in matters of luck and money; stories and fantasies about rock stars and film stars, sporting millionaires and models; jet-setting members of the aristocracy and international financiers. ↗

— James Kelman

#crises #emotional #english-literature #fortune #money

In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#being #danger #ethics #glory #isolates