Michael Drayton Quotes

Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to my friendship. On the contrary, great good qualities are requisite to make amends for their having wealth, title, and office.

All men are equal; it is not their birth, but virtue itself that makes the difference

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

The Englishman wants to be recognized as a gentleman, or as some other suitable species of human being, the American wants to be considered a good guy.

It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.

Honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.

Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.

Fame and success and titles stay with you, but they wear out eventually. In the end, all that you are left with is your character.

I weigh the man, not his title; 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal better.

High birth is an accident, not a virtue.

For titles do not reflect honor on men, but rather men on their titles.

Conduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what men are, but what they do, constitutes their claim to deference … merit, and not birth, is the only rightful claim to power and authority

It is not the places which grace men, but men the places.

Class does not mean huge possession of money. Mother Teresa was a classy woman. So is Manjula Bhargava, a great mathematician of Indian origin. The concept that you automatically gain class by acquiring money is an outdated thought process.

Virtue is the first title of nobility.

To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker's son] for his mean birth, "My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you.

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name.

It is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.

If thou takest virtue for the rule of life, and valuest thyself upon acting in all things comfortably thereto, thou wilt have no cause to envy lords and princes; for blood is inherited, but virtue is common property, and may be acquired by all; it has, moreover, an intrinsic worth, which blood has not.

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue.

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

That education should be regulated by law and should be an affair of state is not to be denied, but what should be the character of this public education, and how young persons should be educated, are questions which remain to be considered. As things are, there is disagreement about the subjects. For mankind are by no means agreed about the things to be taught, whether we look to virtue or the best life. Neither is it clear whether education is more concerned with intellectual or with moral virtue.

Riches and power are but gifts of blind fate, whereas goodness is the result of one's own merits.

He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.