Gilded Quotes - Page 2

• Oft has good nature been the fool's defence, And honest meaning gilded want of sense.

  William Shenstone

  Want, Fool, Honest

  William Shenstone (1868). “The Poetical Works of William Shenstone: With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes”, p.109

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• Difference between savage and civilized man: one is painted, the other gilded.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Differences, Civilization

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• The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed; but the gilded and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Real, Deceit, Our Actions

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.62

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• Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.

  Diogenes

  Ego, Different, Boast

  "Anthology (Book 3)". Book by Joannes Stobaeus, 1536.

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• We often value the exterior and superficial aspect of things more than their inner reality. Bad manners taint everything even justice and reason. The 'how' of things matters most, and even the most disagreeable matters can be sweetened and gilded over with the proper appearance. Such is the bias and the weakness of the human mind.

  Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

  Reality, Justice, Mind

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• For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground.

  Joseph Addison

  Eye, Gay, Poetry

  'Letter from Italy' (1704)

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• What worked yesterday is the gilded cage of tomorrow.

  Peter Block

  Yesterday, Cages, Tomorrow

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• Sometimes I'm dazzled by how modern and fabulous we are, and how easy everything can be for us; that's the gilded glow of technology, and I marvel at it all the time.

  Susan Orlean

  Technology, Fabulous, Sometimes

  "Facts of Life". www.newyorker.com. December 8, 2010.

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• I'm a big fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, and I realised recently that my music is Pre-Raphaelite in a certain way, in that it reinvents an older era and romanticises it, puts it in this gilded frame.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Fans, Way, Eras

  “Nowt as queer as folk” by Kitty Empire, www.theguardian.com. October 12, 2003.

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• The Germany I was enthused with was more old fashioned and kind of romantic. I just got there, and the next thing you know, I had this huge gilded album. It was kind of an amazing experience because I didn't intend it to be that way.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Germany, Albums, Way

  "Operatic Pop Singer Rufus Wainwright in Concert". The NPR.org Interview, www.npr.org. June 9, 2007.

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• Out of the sea will rise Behemoth and Leviathan, and sail 'round the high-pooped galleys... Dragons will wander about the waste places, and the phoenix will soar from her nest of fire into the air. We shall lay our hands upon the basilisk, and see the jewel in the toad's head. Champing his gilded oats, the Hippogriff will stand in our stalls, and over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that should be.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Fire, Impossible Things

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• How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much. As cages go, it is a gilded one, but I shall not live well in it or any cage for that matter.

  Libba Bray

  Care, Want, Matter

  Libba Bray (2010). “The Sweet Far Thing”, p.519, Simon and Schuster

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• As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Book, Air, Smell

  Maggie Stiefvater (2009). “Shiver”, p.11, Scholastic Inc.

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• For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Men, Glasses, Unyielding

  H. P. Lovecraft (2016). “The Outsider, Pickman’s Model, The Rats in the Walls, The Silver Key”, p.10, H. P. Lovecraft

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• No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too, Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebb and flow by the moon.

  William Shakespeare

  Wall, Butterfly, Blessing

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 5, sc. 3, l. 8

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• The cat, covered in dust and standing on its hind legs, bowed to Margarita. Round its neck it was now wearing a made-up white bow tie on an elastic band, with a pair of ladies’ mother-of-pearl binoculars hanging on a cord. It had also gilded its whiskers.

  Mikhail Bulgakov

  Mother, Cat, Dust

  Mikhail Bulgakov (1967). “The master and Margarita [by] Mikhail Bulgakov”

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• The Obamas, especially Michelle, have radiated the sense that Americans do not appreciate what they sacrifice by living in a gilded cage. They've forgotten Rule No. 1 of politics: No one sheds tears for anyone lucky enough to live at the White House.

  Maureen Dowd

  Sacrifice, White, Appreciate

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• Her beauty was sold for an old man's gold. She's a bird in a gilded cage.

  Arthur J. Lamb

  Beauty, Men, Bird

  "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" (song) (1900)

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• Ambition is a gilded misery, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original of vices, the moth of holiness, the blinder of hearts, turning medicines into maladies, and remedies into diseases.

  Thomas Brooks

  Mother, Lying, Heart

  Thomas Brooks (2001). “Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 5 of 6”, p.4, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• O Spirit of the Summertime! Bring back the roses to the dells; The swallow from her distant clime, The honey-bee from drowsy cells. Bring back the friendship of the sun; The gilded evenings, calm and late, When merry children homeward run, And peeping stars bid lovers wait. Bring back the singing; and the scent Of meadowlands at dewy prime;- Oh, bring again my heart's content, Thou Spirit of the Summertime!

  William Allingham

  Summer, Running, Stars

  William Allingham (1865). “Fifty Modern Poems”, p.49

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• It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes and roofs of villages, on woodland crests and their aerial neighborhoods of nests deserted, on the curtained window-panes of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes and harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Country, Children, Sleep

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated)”, p.1002, Delphi Classics

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• Yea, Paris is a festive ton -- a festive Ton for all! Skate o'er on joy -- Thin crust of gilded, polished joy! What matters it if Hell's beneath?

  D. H. Lawrence

  What Matters, Paris, Joy

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• A market economy cannot thrive absent the well-being of average people, even in a gilded age.

  Jaron Lanier

  Average, People, Economy

  Jaron Lanier (2014). “Who Owns the Future?”, p.43, Simon and Schuster

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• Die for adultery! No: The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight

  William Shakespeare

  Sight, Doe, Wrens

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 4, sc. 6, l. [110]

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• I could not but smile to think in what out-of-the-way corners genius produces her bantlings! And the Muses, those capricious dames, who, forsooth, so often refuse to visit palaces, and deny a single smile to votaries in splendid studies, and gilded drawing-rooms--what holes and burrows will they frequent to lavish their favors on some ragged disciple!

  Washington Irving

  Thinking, Drawing, Dames

  Washington Irving, Charles Neider (1998). “The Complete Tales of Washington Irving”, p.275, Da Capo Press

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