Nobility is made of elevation and compassion; by elevation it withdraws from things, and by compassion it comes back to them; but it also comes back to them by discernment and justice, for it is made not only of charity, but also of resistance, given the nature of the world in which it manifests itself. (GTUFS: EchPW, 45)
Man has the right to be happy, but he must be so nobly and, what amounts to the same thing, within the framework of the Truth and the Way. Nobility is characterized by its correspondence to the real hierarchy of values: the higher takes precedence over the lower, and this applies on the plane of the sentiments as well as on that of thoughts and volitions. It has been said that NOBILITY of character consists in putting honour and moral dignity above self-interest, which means in the last analysis that we must put the invisible real above the visible illusory, morally as well as intellectually. Nobility is made of detachment and generosity; without NOBILITY, the gifts of intelligence and the efforts of the will can never suffice for the Way, for man is not reducible to these two faculties, he also possesses a soul capable of love and destined for happiness; and the latter cannot be realized – except in a wholly illusory fashion – without virtue or NOBILITY. We could also say that the Way is made of discernment, concentration and goodness: of discernment for the intelligence, of concentration for the will, of goodness for the soul; the fundamental goodness of the soul is at the same time its beauty, just as every sensible beauty reveals an underlying cosmic goodness. Detachment implies objectivity with regard to oneself; generosity implies likewise the capacity to put oneself in the place of others, and thus to be “oneself” in others. These attitudes, which a priori are intellectual, become NOBILITY on the plane of the soul; NOBILITY is a mode of objectivity as well as of transcendence. (GTUFS: EsoterismPW, The Virtues in the Way)
Nobility (true): True NOBILITY, which cannot in any case be the monopoly of a function, implies a penetrating consciousness of the nature of things and at the same time a generous giving of the self, consequently it excludes idle fancies no less than meanness. (GTUFS: LightAW, The Ancient Worlds in Perspective)
Nobility / Honor: To be noble is to sacrifice one’s interest to the truth, and so to the “duty” which the former defines, whence also the notion of “honor,” a notion which is much more contingent, but not unreal; NOBILITY is the natural conformity of the will and the sensibility to the demands of Equilibrium and Attraction (it is to see things “from above” and without any baseness), while honor is the social obligation never to betray this attitude, or not to betray the confidence that has been placed in us in the name of our preferment; whence the saying noblesse oblige. (GTUFS: LogicT, The Problem of Qualifications)