Gilded Quotes:

We will all laugh at gilded butterflies.

- William Shakespeare

topic: Butterfly, Laughing, Gilded

Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy Unload their gaudy senseless merchandise.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Chrysanthemums, Gilded, Merchandise, Gaudy

But you see, that's the gilded prison of fashion. We're riding in private jets, and meantime I was so incredibly, painfully sad and lonely.

- Janice Dickinson

topic: Lonely, Fashion, Riding, Private Jet, Gilded

We are with you in this work. Workingmen must form a party of their own, take charge of the government, dispose gilded fraud, and put honest toil in power.

- Denis Kearney

topic: Party, Government, Toil, Gilded

For a man who has compared himself to Theodore Roosevelt and the nation's challenges to those of the Gilded Age, Obama put forward a tepid agenda.

- Ron Fournier

topic: Men, Challenges, Age, Theodore, Gilded

So we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies.

- William Shakespeare

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

topic: Butterfly, Ebb And Flow, Laughing, Cordelia, Gilded

A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent

- Logan Pearsall Smith

topic: Talent, Mediocre, Gilded, Best Sellers

True beauty lies not upon gilded veneers, But found in the soul within.

- E. A. Bucchianeri

topic: Lying, Soul, True Beauty, Veneer, Gilded

All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told.

- William Shakespeare

topic: Love, Gold, Old Love, Merchant Of Venice, Merchant Of Venice Famous

I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her.

- Oscar Wilde

source: Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.665, GENERAL PRESS

topic: Stars, Science, Moon, Clusters, Gilded

Liberty? Why it doesn't exist. There is no liberty in this world, just gilded cages.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Liberty, World, Cages, Gilded

The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

- Mark Twain

source: "The Stolen White Elephant: Etc". Book by Mark Twain, p. 220-221, 1882.

topic: Beautiful, Lying, Perfection, Lying Men, Edifice

It is part of wisdom never to revisit a wilderness, for the more golden the lily, the more certain that someone has gilded it

- Aldo Leopold

topic: Lilies, Golden, Wilderness, Gilded

All that glitters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life has sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold Had you been as wise as bold, Your in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been in'scroll'd Fare you well: your suit is cold.' Cold, indeed, and labour lost: Then, farewell, heat and welcome, frost!

- William Shakespeare

source: William Shakespeare (2014). “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Deluxe Annotated: Suitable for Home Reading, Academic Study, and Dramatic Productions”, p.615, BookBaby

topic: Wise, Farewell, Men, Gilded

The gilded sheath of pity sometimes covers the dagger of envy.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

topic: Envy, Daggers, Sometimes, Gilded

Stardom can be a gilded slavery.

- Helen Hayes

source: Helen Hayes (2014). “On Reflection: An Autobiography”, p.233, Rowman & Littlefield

topic: Slavery, Stardom, Gilded

The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.

- William J. Clinton

topic: Years, Greed, Age, Gilded, Gilded Age

The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.

- Mark Twain

source: Mark Twain Laughing 1904, #370 (p. 98)

topic: Men, Average, Civilization, Gilded

Nods from the Gilded pointers - Nods from the Seconds slim - Decades of Arrogance between The Dial life - And Him -

- Emily Dickinson

source: Emily Dickinson, Helen Vendler (2010). “Dickinson”, p.91, Harvard University Press

topic: Life, Arrogance, Slim, Pointers, Gilded

How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook!

- Aldo Leopold

topic: Hunting, Wind, Fishing, Rue, Gilded

Yet, even for us, there is left some loveliness of environment, and the dullness of tutors and professors matters very little when one can loiter in the grey cloisters at Magdalen, and listen to some flute-like voice singing in Waynfleete's chapel, or lie in the green meadow, among the strange snakespotted fritillaries, and watch the sunburnt noon smite to a finer gold the tower's gilded vanes, or wander up the Christ Church staircase beneath the vaulted ceiling's shadowy fans, or pass through the sculptured gateway of Laud's building in the College of St. John.

- Oscar Wilde

source: Oscar Wilde (1999). “De Profundis: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Writings”, p.231, Wordsworth Editions

topic: Lying, College, Oxford, Staircases, Dullness

What is a throne? - a bit of wood gilded and covered in velvet. I am the state- I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public - people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France.

- Napoleon Bonaparte

source: Statement to the Senate, 1814.

topic: Dirty, Home, Army, Linen, Gilded

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly rising o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm.

- Thomas Gray

topic: Blow, Laughing, Rising, Zephyr, Azure

All the world's indeed a stage And we are merely players Performers and portrayers Each another's audience outside the gilded cage

- Neil Peart

topic: Player, Cages, World, Gilded

Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?

- Alexander Pope

topic: Wings, Hawks, Dove, Falcon, Gilded

Today, as in the Gilded Age, we live in a world where a morality of personal responsibility rubs shoulders with a culture of greed and of flagrant social irresponsibility. Now as then, business has shed its collective responsibility for employees - just as government has for its citizens.

- Charles Derber

source: Charles Derber (2015). “Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States”, p.107, Routledge

topic: Responsibility, Government, Greed, Irresponsibility, Collective Responsibility

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

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

topic: Real, Deceit, Our Actions, Gilded

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

topic: Reality, Justice, Mind, Bad Manners, Gilded

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

- Diogenes

topic: Ego, Different, Boast, Gilded, Armour

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

- Mark Twain

topic: Men, Differences, Civilization, Gilded

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

- William Shenstone

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

topic: Want, Fool, Honest, Gilded

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

source: 'Letter from Italy' (1704)

topic: Eye, Gay, Poetry, Gilded, Prospects

What worked yesterday is the gilded cage of tomorrow.

- Peter Block

topic: Yesterday, Cages, Tomorrow, Gilded

I have done what they expected of me. I have curtsied for my Queen and made my debut. This is what I have anticipated eagerly for years. So why do I feel so unsatisfied? Everyone is merry. They haven't a care in the world. And perhaps that is it. How terrible it is to have no cares, no longings. I do not fit. I feel too deeply and want too much.

- Libba Bray

topic: Queens, Years, Care, Gilded

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

topic: Beautiful, Fire, Impossible Things, Leviathan, Behemoth

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

topic: Albums, Way, Next, Amazing Experiences, Gilded

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

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

topic: Book, Air, Smell, Shiver, Gilded

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

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

topic: Men, Glasses, Unyielding, Gilded

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

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

topic: Wall, Butterfly, Blessing, Cordelia, Gilded

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

topic: Way, Eras, Fans, Gilded

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

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

topic: Mother, Cat, Dust, Margarita, Bow Tie

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

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

topic: Mother, Lying, Heart, Gilded

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

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

topic: Summer, Running, Stars, Peeping, Summer Time

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

- Arthur J. Lamb

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

topic: Men, Bird, Gold, Gilded

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

topic: Sacrifice, White, Appreciate, Gilded

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

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

topic: Technology, Fabulous, Sometimes, Gilded

Poor-country surf communities can be complex and, to some extent, leveling. The fisherman's kid is competing head to head with the plutocrat's gilded son. Your father can't buy you a good frontside hack.

- William Finnegan

topic: Country, Father, Kids, Poor Countries, Gilded

It is not the thinker who is the true king of men, as we sometimes hear it proudly said. We need one who will not only show, but be the Truth; who will not only point, but open and be the Way; who will not only communicate thought, but give, because He is the Life. Not the rabbi's pulpit, nor the teacher's desk, still less the gilded chairs of earthly monarchs, least of all the' tents of conquerors, are the throne of the true king. He rules from the cross.

- Alexander MacLaren

source: "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 78), 1895.

topic: Teacher, Kings, Men, Monarchs, Rabbi

Theres something unique about the United States, a sense of individual rights and freedoms, and a sense of social and civic responsibility that we contributed to so much of the world. We lost that mission in the 1980s and 1990s, when we entered a gilded age, and the culture of individualism became a culture of avarice.

- George Hickenlooper

topic: Responsibility, Unique, Rights, Civic Responsibility, Gilded

The American elite ... is almost beyond redemption. Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush -- sophistry washed down with Chardonnay.

- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

source: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (1997). “The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories”, Regnery Pub

topic: Class, Redemption, Sophistry, Moral Relativism, Derelict

Sept. 11 jolted America out of its second gilded age.

- Douglas Wilder

source: "Obama-Clinton ticket for 2012" by L.Douglas Wilder, www.politico.com. August 2, 2010.

topic: America, Age, Sept 11, Gilded, Gilded Age