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Gilded Quotes

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Gilded Quotes

“I was the chief of security on this civilian behemoth. Yes, that’s right – I used a big word – try not to faint. I was one of the mostly invisible shepherds protecting the gilded flock of holidaymakers on their pleasure cruise through space. Most of the time it was boring, tedious work with nothing more exciting than the occasional case of misplaced luggage, passengers getting lost in the miles of corridor asking for directions, and just being visible to the passengers to put their minds at ease and make them think they were safe. Safe? Ha ha! This is space, man – anything can happen. Finding my shuttle out here proves that.”

WordTheIBigGildedYesFaintBehemothCivilianMostly
Book:Space Vacation
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“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.”

WorldGovernmentAgeTodayCultureSocialResponsibilityCitizensMoralityGreedShouldersCorporationsEmployeeCollectivesShedPersonal ResponsibilityIrresponsibilityGildedGilded AgeCollective Responsibility
Book:Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States
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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.”

MindHumansMatterReasonRealityValuesJusticeWeaknessAspectAppearanceMannersHuman MindBiasSuperficialDisagreeableExteriorGildedBad Manners
Author:Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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“Reagan's story of freedom superficially alludes to the Founding Fathers, but its substance comes from the Gilded Age, devised by apologists for the robber barons. It is posed abstractly as the freedom of the individual from government control a Jeffersonian ideal at the roots of our Bill of Rights, to be sure. But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else.”

MeanStillsStoriesGovernmentAgeTodayPoliticalFatherIndividualSocialWealthResponsibilityRightsCenturyIdealsRootsBillsDemocraticSubstanceFoundingLicensePolitical SystemsBill Of RightsRobbersGildedGilded AgeRobber Baron
Author:Bill Moyers
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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!”

ThinkingWayRoomsStudyProduceGeniusRefuseCornersDenyDrawingFavorsHolesMuseDisciplePalacesSplendidCapriciousDamesRaggedGilded
Book:The Complete Tales of Washington Irving
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“In the later nineteenth century, the tops of skyscrapers often took the shape of domes, surmounted by jaunty gilded lanterns; later came ziggurats, mausoleums, Alexandrian lighthouses, miniature Parthenons. These charming follies contained neither royal corpses nor effigies of gods and goddesses; rather they contained large wooden tanks filled with water.”

WaterCenturyShapesFilledFollyGoddessCharmingRoyalCorpsesTanksNineteenth CenturyLighthouseMiniaturesSkyscraperDomesLanternsGildedGods And GoddessesMausoleumParthenon
Author:Brendan Gill
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“Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke-smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funereal swans constantly drifting throughout the whole country, around the seas, along the canals.”

CountryWholeDreamNightBlackSeaGoldBarsHandleSmokeRidingBicycleDriftingSwansHollandCanalsGilded
Book:Collected fiction
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“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.”

MenWayNeedsGivingSaidStillsSometimesShowsChristTeacherKingsCrossesCommunicateChairsThinkerDesksThronesConquerorTentsMonarchsPulpitRabbiGilded
Author:Alexander MacLaren
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“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.”

WorldStatesAgeCultureIndividualLostSocialUnitedResponsibilityUnited StatesRightsUniqueMissionsIndividualismAvariceCivicsIndividual RightsRights And FreedomsGildedGilded AgeCivic Responsibility
Author:George Hickenlooper
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“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.”

Life IsMoralClassRedemptionJournalistElitesIncapableRelativismDiscerningGildedSophistryMoral RelativismDerelictChardonnay
Book:The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories
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“A good deal of philanthropy arises in general from mere vanity and love of distinction gilded over to others and to themselves with some show of benevolent sentiment.”

ShowsDealsAnd LoveMereAriseVanityDistinctionSentimentsPhilanthropyBenevolentGilded
Book:The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott: With a Biography, and His Last Additions and Illustrations
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“The vicissitudes of life resemble one of those gilded balls seen in a fountain. Thrown up by the force of the water, it flies up and down - now at the top, catching the rays of the sun, now cast into the depths, then again shooting up, sometimes so high that it escapes altogether, and falls to the ground.”

LifeSometimesFallForceWaterSunBallsDepthCastsShootingThrownRaysFountainUp And DownCatchingUps & DownsVicissitudesGildedShooting Up
Author:Lady Randolph Churchill
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“Like his admirer Samuel Beckett, Johnson locates his voices among conditions of such deprivation that even the most miserable memories are gilded by comparison: this paradox fuels equal parts of comedy and pathos. Never sentimental, at once corrosive and elegiac, House Mother Normal is a remarkable achievement.”

MotherHouseVoiceMemoriesComedyConditionsEqualNormalAchievementMiserableFuelRemarkableComparisonParadoxSentimentalJohnsonDeprivationAdmirerPathosBeckettGilded
Author:James Marcus
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“No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam; but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior, the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned, happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity, there he died in glory and peace.”

CountryDoneAmericaPeaceUnitedMorningGratitudeEternalGloryDiedSimplicityHumbleNobleWarriorEveningSettlingSunshineRoofBeamUnselfishMagistratesDomesLove And GratitudeGildedEternal Sunshine
Author:Edward Everett Hale
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