MFatih55

“Personal distinction is the only passport to the society of the great. Whether this distinction arise from fortune, family, or talent, is immaterial; but certain it is, to enter into high society, a man must either have blood, a million, or a genius.”
― Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey

“Now it happened that just the night before last Julien had been to see M. Casimir Delavigne's tragedy, Marino Faliero. - Wasn't Israel Bertuccio a greater figure than all those Venetian nobles? our rebellios plebian asked himself; and yet they were men whose noble lineage can be traced back to the year 700, a century before Charlemagne, while all the best born of those who were at M. de Retz's ball this evening only go back, and even then most lamely, to the thirtheenth century. Well, good! in the mids of those Venetian nobles, so very high born, it is Israel Bertuccio one remembers.

A conspiracy annihilates all the titles produced by the arbitrary decisions of society. In it a man instantly assumes the rank given him by his manner of envisaging death. Intelligence itself loses its sway...

Where would Danton be today, in the age of Valenod and de Rênal? - not even a deputy crown prosecutor...”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.”
― Thucydides

“It is necessary to know how to slip the all-important matter, rather hinted at than said right out, in between the description of two fashionable entertainments, without appearing to intend it. It is necessary to imply a thing by judicious reservations; let what is desired be guessed at; contradict in such a fashion as to confirm, or affirm in such a way that no one shall believe the statement”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami