Courtiers Quotes

On this page you will find all the quotes on the topic "Courtiers". There are currently 3 quotes in our collection about Courtiers. Discover the TOP 10 sayings about Courtiers!
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  • Oh how unhappy is the prince served by such men who are so easily corrupted.

  • In the humanist ideal, the mainstream is where interesting debate, the generating of new ideas and creativity take place. In rational society this mainstream is considered uncontrollable and is therefore made marginal. The centre ground is occupied instead by structures and courtiers.

    "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.
  • The neo-conservatives, who are closely linked to the neo-corporatists, are rather different. They claim to be conservatives, when everything they stand for is a rejection of conservatism. They claim to present an alternate social model, when they are little more than the courtiers of the corporatist movement. Their agitation is filled with the bitterness and cynicism typical of courtiers who scramble for crumbs at the banquet tables of real power, but are always denied a proper chair.

  • It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for narration: but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs shuld not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room, or the factions of a camp.

    Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.453
  • Until the end of the Middle Ages, and in many cases afterwards too, in order to obtain initiation in a trade of any sort whatever--whether that of courtier, soldier, administrator, merchant or workman--a boy did not amass the knowledge necessary to ply that trade before entering it, but threw himself into it; he then acquired the necessary knowledge.

    Boys   Order   Soldier  
    Philippe Ariès (1962). “Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life”, Vintage
  • ...many of the officials, courtiers, and priests, representing the upper class of Egyptian society but not the royalty, looked strikingly like modern Europeans, especially long-headed ones

    Class   Long   Royalty  
  • Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.

  • I would not be a rose upon the wall A queen might stop at, near the palace-door, To say to a courtier, "Pluck that rose for me, It's prettier than the rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd rather far be trodden by his foot, Than lie in a great queen's bosom.

    Life   Queens   Wall  
    Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1857). “Aurora Leigh”, p.129
  • Every spendthrift passion has its attendant courtiers.

    Doris Lessing (2010). “Shikasta: Re, Colonised Planet 5”, p.301, Vintage
  • I find virtue to be found amongst the farmers of the country alone, not about courts, where courtiers dwell.

    Country   Virtue   Found  
  • Leaders of the Church have often been Narcissus, flattered and sickeningly excited by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.

    Leader   Church   Leprosy  
  • But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.

    Pain   Play   Ill  
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.150, Graphic Arts Books
  • Here and there in the ancient literature we encounter legends of wise and mysterious games that were conceived and played by scholars, monks, or the courtiers of cultured princes. These might take the form of chess games in which the pieces and squares had secret meanings in addition to their usual functions.

    Wise   Squares   Games  
  • Washington has become our Versailles. We are ruled, entertained, and informed by courtiers -- and the media has evolved into a class of courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are mostly courtiers. Our pundits and experts, at least those with prominent public platforms, are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception.

    Games   Class   Mirrors  
  • The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.

    Death   Wind   Mad  
    Joseph Conrad (2015). “The Complete Novels of Joseph Conrad - All 20 Works in One Premium Edition: Including Unforgettable Titles like Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes and Many More (With Author’s Letters, Memoirs and Critical Essays)”, p.4441, e-artnow
  • The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men.

    Father   Men   Race  
    Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.9, Courier Corporation
  • Dogs live with man as courtiers 'round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice ... to push their favor in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their lives.

    Dog   Men   World  
    Robert Louis Stevenson (2016). “Memories and Portraits: Stevenson's Vol. 21”, p.70, VM eBooks
  • And why does England thus persecute the votaries of her science? Why does she depress them to the level of her hewers of wood and her drawers of water? Is it because science flatters no courtier, mingles in no political strife? ... Can we behold unmoved the science of England, the vital principle of her arts, struggling for existence, the meek and unarmed victim of political strife?

  • Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing their colored clothes; caps and bells. And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng's clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, 0 Lord, Creator, Hallowed one, You still, hour by hour sustain it.

    Denise Levertov (1997). “The Stream & the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes”, p.33, New Directions Publishing
  • Perhaps one of the only positive pieces of advice that I was ever given was that supplied by an old courtier who observed: Only two rules really count. Never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself; never miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet.

    Opportunity   Two   Feet  
  • The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing,--each his own interest.

    George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.363
  • I am a courtier grave and serious Who is about to kiss your hand: Try to combine a pose imperious With a demeanour nobly bland.

    Kissing   Hands   Trying  
    1889 The Gondoliers, act 2.
  • When mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food It ennobled our hearts and enriched our blood-- Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good. Oh! the roast beef of England. And Old England's roast beef.

    Heart   Blood   Brave  
    'The Grub Street Opera' (1731) act 3, sc. 3
  • Ausonius must be read to be believed! As poet, no subject is too trivial for him; as courtier, no flattery too excessive.

  • I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; not the soldier's which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness.

    Nice   Humorous   Sadness  
    William Shakespeare (2012). “Comedies of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)”, p.747, BookCaps Study Guides
  • What is known as success assumes nearly as many aliases as there are those who seek it. Like love, it can come to commoners as well as courtiers. Like virtue, it is its own reward. Like the Holy Grail, it seldom appears to those who don't pursue it.

  • You can smile when your heart is breaking because you are a woman, and a courtier, and a Howard. That's three reasons for being the most deceitful creature on God's earth.

    Heart   Three   Earth  
    Philippa Gregory (2008). “The Other Boleyn Girl (Movie Tie-In)”, p.98, Simon and Schuster
  • The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

  • It is depressing but not shocking to witness the liberal intelligentsia embrace Ari Shavit so enthusiastically. Shavit is someone who is as consistently wrong as Thomas Friedman on major issues, and at least as much a courtier of power.

    Source: www.guernicamag.com
  • To the courtiers flushed with wine, life was pleasure, and pleasure life.

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