Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert (1647–1733) writer from France
Source: A Mother's Advice to Her Son, 1726, p. 139
“It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.”
— Francesco Petrarca, book De vita solitaria
De vita solitaria (1346) as quoted in Madalyn Aslan's Jupiter Signs: How to Improve Your Luck, Career, Health, Finances, Appearance, and Relationships Through the New Astrology (2003) by Madalyn Aslan
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Francesco Petrarca73
Italian scholar and poet 1304–1374Related quotes
“More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.”
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831)
“Unless one is happy, one cannot bestow happiness on others.”
Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader
Abide as the Self
Ernest Hemingway book Across the River and into the Trees
Colonel Richard Cantwell and Renata in Ch. 38
Across the River and into the Trees (1950)
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Il y a une élévation qui ne dépend point de la fortune: c’est un certain air qui nous distingue et qui semble nous destiner aux grandes choses; c’est un prix que nous nous donnons imperceptiblement à nous-mêmes; c’est par cette qualité que nous usurpons les déférences des autres hommes, et c’est elle d’ordinaire qui nous met plus au-dessus d’eux que la naissance, les dignités, et le mérite même.
Maxim 399.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom
La galantería y la honra tienen esta ventaja, que se quedan: aquélla en quien la usa, ésta en quien la haze.
Maxim 118: (p. 66)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
"The Great Good Man" (1802).
Context: How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits
Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
.........
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures,—love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,—
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 455.
“The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.”
Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America
"The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker" was later used as Nixon's epitaph.
1960s, First Inaugural Address (1969)
Context: What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.
The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America — the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil, and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization.
If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind.
This is our summons to greatness.