gentlemen quotes

I grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentleman, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be:Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a flip.

- Charlotte Bronte« 
  Jane Eyre ch.17.

   It is therefore our business carefully to cultivate in our minds, to rear to the most perfect vigour and maturity, every sort of generous and honest feeling that belongs to our nature. To bring the dispositions that are loved in private life into the service and conduct of the commonwealth; so to be patriots, asnot toforget we are gentlemen.

- Edmund Burke
  Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents.

By act of Congress, male officers are gentlemen, but by act of God, we are ladies.

- Brigadier General Sherian G(race) Cadoria
  In US News and World Report,13 Feb.

Tea, although an Oriental, 212 Is a gentleman at least; Cocoa is a cad and coward, Cocoa is a vulgar beast.

- G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
  The Flying Inn, ch.18, stanza 3. Collected as'The Song of Right and Wrong' in Wine, Water and Song (1915).

Gentlemen do not take soup at luncheon. 250

- Lord George Nathaniel Curzon (of Kedleston)
Attributed. Quoted in E L  Woodward Short Journey (1942), ch.7.

'Faith' is a fine invention When Gentlemen can see But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency.

- Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
c.1860  Complete Poems, no.185 (first published1891).

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa-aa-aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to eternity, God ha'mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!

- (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
  'The Gentlemen-Rankers'.

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking inthestreet, Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

- (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
  Puck of Pook's Hill,'Smuggler's Song'.

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room.

- Stanley Kubrick
  Dr Strangelove: or How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb (with Terry Southern and Peter George).

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

- Anita Loos
   Title of novel, and subsequently a film starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell (1953).

Gentlemen always seem to remember blondes.

- Anita Loos
  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, ch.1.

So I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very very good but a diamond and safire bracelet lasts forever. 517

- Anita Loos
  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, ch.4.

Gentlemen know that fresh air should be kept in its proper placeout of doorsand that,God having given us indoors and out-of-doors, we should not attempt to do away with that distinction.

- Dame (Emilie) Rose Macaulay
  Crewe Train, pt.1, ch.5.

Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen.

- Sir (Edward Montague) Compton MacKenzie
  Literature in My  Time, ch.22.

Hors de Paris, il n'y a point de salut pour les honne"  tes gens. Outside of Paris, there is no salvation for gentlemen.

-Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molie'  re
  Les pre  cieuses ridicules, sc.9.

Cricket? Itcivilises peopleand createsgood gentlemen.I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe. I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen.

- Robert Gabriel Mugabe
Quoted in Helen Exley Cricket Quotations (1992).

I always said that I'd like Barrymore's acting till the cows came home. Well, ladies and gentlemen, last Nathan sciences,themarrowof wit, andtheveryphraseofangels. night the cows came home.

- GeorgeJean Nathan
  Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Devil, 'An Invective Against Enemies of Poetry'. 1939  Review of  John Barrymore's performance in My Dear Children.

You may call it coalition, you may call it the accidental and fortuitous concurrence of atoms†but when gentlemen are in the habit of finding themselves in the same Lobby, it is not unnatural to suppose that they may, under certain circumstances, be ready to unite themselves together for the purpose of forming an Administration and becoming responsible for the opinions that they severally entertain.

- HenryJohnTemple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
  Speech on the rumoured Palmerston^Disraeli coalition, 5 Mar.

I want to ask you gentlemen, if I cannot give consent to my own death, then whose body is this? Who owns my life?

- Sue Rodriguez
  Videotaped presentation to theJustice Committee of the House of Commons, Ottawa, Nov. Reported by DeborahWilson in The Globe and Mail, 5 Dec.The Supreme Court of Canada denied Rodriguez's request for a physician-assisted death.

'Then, gentlemen,'said Redgauntlet, clasping his hands together as the words burst from him,'the cause is lost for ever!'

- Sir Walter Scott
  Redgauntlet, ch.23.

Mr Dangle, here are two very civil gentlemen trying to make themselves understood, and I don't know which is the interpreter.

- Richard Brinsley Sheridan
  Mrs Dangle.The Critic, act1, sc.2.

The Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen.

-William Makepeace Thackeray
^50  Pendennis, ch.32.

   I expect you'll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behaviour.

- Evelyn Arthur StJohn Waugh
  Decline and Fall, Prelude.

For generations the British bourgeoisie have spoken of themselves as gentlemen, and by that they have meant, among other things, a self-respecting scorn of irregular perquisites. It is the quality that distinguishes the gentleman from both the artist and the aristocrat.

- Evelyn Arthur StJohn Waugh
  Decline and Fall, pt.1, ch.6.

Hard pounding this, gentlemen, let'ssee who will pound longest.

- Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
  At the Battle of Waterloo,18 Jun. Quoted in SirWalter Scott Paul's Letters (1816), letter 8.