“Generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.”

— Ambrose Bierce , book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It no…" by Ambrose Bierce?

Ambrose Bierce 204

American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabu… 1842–1914

Related quotes

“The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

H 1
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

“It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Timber: or Discoveries

“A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso, Act I, sc. i (1790)

“For ignobleness cannot, by the nature of it, choose the noble: no, there needs a seeing man who is himself noble, cognizant by internal experience of the symptoms of nobleness.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)
Context: In the lowest broad strata of the population, equally as in the highest and narrowest, are produced men of every kind of genius; man for man, your chance of genius is as good among the millions as among the units;—and class for class, what must it be! From all classes, not from certain hundreds now but from several millions, whatsoever man the gods had gifted with intellect and nobleness, and power to help his country, could be chosen: O Heavens, could,—if not by Tenpound Constituencies and the force of beer, then by a Reforming Premier with eyes in his head, who I think might do it quite infinitely better. Infinitely better. For ignobleness cannot, by the nature of it, choose the noble: no, there needs a seeing man who is himself noble, cognizant by internal experience of the symptoms of nobleness.