“Rank is a great beautifier.”
The Lady of Lyons (1838), Act ii, Scene i.
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Edward Bulwer-Lytton31
English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician 1803–1873Related quotes
“Time is the great leveller, but he is also the sanctifier and the beautifier.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
The Monthly Magazine
Tulsidas (1532–1623) Hindu poet-saint
Source: On Tulsidas’s epic Ramacharritamanas, P.E.Keay in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", p. 35
Abdul-Qādir Bedil (1644–1720) Persian writer,poet
Bedil: Selected Poems, p. 59
Rubaʿiyat (Quatrains), Stanza
Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician
Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human (1992)
Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader
The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)
Context: I never had much faith in leaders. I am willing to be charged with almost anything, rather than to be charged with being a leader. I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the week. If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses — you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.
Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi Sufi Maturidi scholar and Hanafi jurist
of God
Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 83
“Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.”
George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era
Lucifer in Starlight, l. 13-14.
Joyce Kilmer Trees and Other Poems
"Memorial Day"; this poem was later published in The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920)
Trees and Other Poems (1914)
Context: The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky. Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom and the Right. May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace... Who brought a sword.</p