It is perhaps common in the world for individuals and nations to suffer for their noble qualities more than for their ignoble ones. For nobility is an occasion for pride, the most treacherous of sentiments.
He [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] was a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of men and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime.
Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.
Confusion is not an ignoble condition
Democracy turns upon and devours itself. Universal suffrage, in theory the palladium of our liberties, becomes the assurance of our slavery. And that slavery will grow more and more abject and ignoble as the differential birth rate, the deliberate encouragement of mendicancy and the failure of popular education produce a larger and larger mass of prehensile half-wits, and so make the demagogues more and more secure.
It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. . . . The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.
No one can expect a majority to be stirred by motives other than ignoble.
The world now seems a stunningly ignoble place. It has not really grown all that much worse but appears to have done so because we know so much more about it than we did.
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learn'd or brave.
Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble.
There is nothing truly beautiful but that which can never be of any use whatsoever; everything useful is ugly, for it is the expression of some need, and man's needs are ignoble and disgusting like his own poor and infirm nature. The most useful place in a house is the water-closet.
Many minds that have withstood the most severe trials have been broken down by a succession of ignoble cares.
Life is indeed either a rich possession or a poor, according as it is made subservient to noble aims or ignoble pleasures.
There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.
Lastly no woman should marry a teetotaller, or a man who does not smoke. It is not for nothing that this "ignoble tobagie" as Michelet calls it, spreads all over the world.
It is my conviction that in general women are more snobbish and class conscious than men and that these ignoble traits are a product of men's attitude toward women and women's passive acceptance of this attitude.
Something ignoble, loathsome, undignified attends all associations between people and has been transferred to all objects, dwelling, tools, even the landscape itself.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.
Poverty is relative, and, therefor not ignoble.
