Gentleman Quotes
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"A gentleman leaves no puzzle unsolved"
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More Gentleman Quotes
An affable and courteous gentleman.
william shakespeare— The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1593-94), Act I, scene 2, line 98.
"I've done you a piece of good service, Nancy," he began: then seeing me, he acknowledged my presence by a slight bow. I should have been invisible to Hatfield, or any other gentleman of those parts. "I've delivered your cat," he continued, "from the hands, or rather the gun, of Mr. Murray's gamekeeper."
anne brontë— Ch. XII : The Shower
To be a gentleman does not depend upon the tailor or the toilet. Good clothes are not good habits. A gentleman is just a gentle-man, — no more, no less; a diamond polished, that was first a diamond in the rough.
william croswell doane— Address at Burlington College, reported in Horace Mann, The Common School Journal (1847), p. 191.
The next good quality belonging to a gentleman, is good breeding [manners]. There are two sorts of ill-breeding : the one a sheepish bashfulness , and the other a mis-becoming negligence and disrespect in our carriage ; both of which are avoided by duly observing this one rule, not to think meanly of ourselves, and not to think meanly of others .
john locke— Sec. 141 (Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693))
Skullion had little use for contraceptives at the best of times.Unnatural, he called them, and placed them in the lower social category of things along with elastic-sided boots and made-up bow ties. Not the sort of attire for a gentleman.
Tom (Thomas Ridley) Sharpe— 1974 Porterhouse Blue, ch.9.
A legal gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies, and keeps it himself.
— His definitionof a lawyer. Quoted in Richard Fountain The Wit of the Wig (1968).
I was ne’er so thrummed since I was a gentleman.
thomas dekker— The Honest Whore (1604), Part i, Act iv. Sc. 2. Compare: "Zounds! I was never so bethump’d with words, Since I first call’d my brother’s father dad", William Shakespeare, King John, Act ii. Sc. 2.
So far you have been treated as an officer and a gentleman, but don't think that this will go on if you don't behave better than you have done. You have two hours left in which to confess everything. If you don't, I shall hand you over to the Gestapo, who are used to dealing with such gangsters and criminals — you won't enjoy their methods a bit.
reinhard heydrich— To Captain Sigismund Payne Best, as quoted in The Venlo Incident (1950) by Sigismund Payne Best, p. 41
The city might be savage, stray dogs might share the streets with grimy urchins whose blank eyes reflected the knowledge that they might soon be covered over, blinded forever, by the same two pennies just begged from some gentleman, and no one in the fuming, fulminous boulevards of trade might know who actually ran Ambergris—or, if anyone ran it at all, but, like a renegade clock, it ran on and wound itself heedless, empowered by the insane weight of its own inertia, the weight of its own citizenry.
jeff vandermeer— "Dradin, In Love", Ch. 4, p. 48
I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."
samuel johnson— July 21, 1763, p. 126.
Sir Walter, being strangely supprized and putt out of his countenance at so great a Table, gives his son a damned blow over the face; his son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face of the gentleman that sate next to him, and sayed, Box about, 'twill come to my Father anon. 'Tis now a common used Proverb.
john aubrey— "Sir Walter Raleigh"
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 brontë— 1847 Jane Eyre ch.17.
Whenyou've shouted'Rule Britannia', whenyou've sung 'God save the Queen' When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine For a gentleman in Kharki ordered South?
— 1899 The Absent-Minded Beggar.
'I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich.' 'I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.'
George Bernard Shaw— 1903 Mendoza andJohnTanner. Man and Superman, act 3.
(When asked about the free distribution of Akash tablet his party had promised) “Frankly, I am not the person who came up with the Aakash tablet. You need to ask the gentleman who came up with it.”
rahul gandhi—
To a gentleman, who, at the close of a fierce dispute with Porson, exclaimed, "My opinion of you is most contemptible, Sir"; he retorted, "I never knew an opinion of yours that was not contemptible."
— John Selby Watson, The Life of Richard Porson, M.A. (1861), p. 385.
Moreover, Gerd von Rundstedt was a gentleman to the core. His natural dignity and good manners inspired the respect even of those who differed widely from him in views.
gerd von rundstedt— Basil Henry Liddell Hart
The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."
henry clay— Speech on the New Army Bill, House of Representatives, (8 January 1813), paraphasing Josiah Quincy III's "amicably if they can, violently if they must"; The Life and Speeches of the Hon. Henry Clay, vol. I (1857), ed. Daniel Mallory
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
rudyard kipling— Gentlemen-Rankers, Stanza 1.
The Englishman wants to be recognized as a gentleman, or as some other suitable species of human being, the American wants to be considered a good guy.
Louis Kronenberger— p. 120 (Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954))
The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls.
john lancaster spalding— p. 120 (Aphorisms and Reflections (1901))
No gentleman ever has any money.
oscar wilde— Algernon, Act II
"I am a gentleman." I'll be sworn thou art; Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act I, scene 5, line 310.
For through the South the custom still commands The gentleman to kiss the lady's hands.
lord byron— Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto V, Stanza 105.
I am a gentleman, though spoiled i' the breeding. The Buzzards are all gentlemen. We came in with the Conqueror.
— Richard Brome, The English Moor, Act II. 4.
I never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
— John Stuart Mill, in a letter to the Conservative MP, John Pakington (March 1866); this seems to have become paraphrased as "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." which was a variant published in Quotations for Our Time (1978), edited by Laurence J. Peter.
This earth, that bears thee dead, Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
— Prince Henry, scene iv
I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a Gentle-man and is nothing else.
Oliver Cromwell— 1643 Letter to Sir William Spring, Sep. Quotedin Thomas Carlyle Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (1845).
I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. gentleman will question it.
john stuart mill— John Stuart Mill, in a Parliamentary debate with the Conservative MP, John Pakington (May 31, 1866). Hansard, vol 183, col 1592.Misquoted as "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." in "Life of John Stuart Mill" (1889) by W. L. Courtney, p. 147 as elaboration of footnote 3 to chapter 7 of Mill's "Considerations on Representative Government".This seems to have become paraphrased as "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." which was a variant published in Quotations for Our Time (1978), edited by Laurence J. Peter.
