Gentleman Quotes - Page 40

• Within 18 months of my parents' marriage in 1900, my mother fell in love with an Englishman who would have described himself as a gentleman but who was, in fact, nothing more than a devious adventurer.

  Paul Mellon

  Mother, Parents Marriage, Months

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• I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated fromlong housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Looks, Today, Baggage

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience: Top American Literary”, p.42, 谷月社

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• Aristocracy is an atmosphere; it is sometimes a healthy atmosphere; but it is very hard to say when it becomes an unhealthy atmosphere. You can prove that a man is not the son of a king, or that he is not the delegate of a definite number of people. But you cannot prove that a man is not a gentleman.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Kings, Son, Men

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• I have observed that in comedies the best actor plays the droll, while some scrub rogue is made the fine gentleman or hero. Thus it is in the farce of life. Wise men spend their time in mirth; it is only fools who are serious.

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

  Wise, Hero, Men

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• It was in the beginning of the month of November, 17--, when a young English gentleman, who had just left the university of Oxford, made use of the liberty afforded him, to visit some parts of the north of England; and curiosity extended his tour into the adjacent frontier of the sister country.

  Walter Scott

  Country, Book, Oxford

  Sir Walter Scott (1855). “The Waverley Novels: In Twelve Volumes, Printed from the Latest English Editions, Embracing the Author's Last Corrections, Prefaces, and Notes”, p.327

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• A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness; genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Art, Ease, Respectful

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• The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Ease, He Man

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• If you love music hear it; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of bad company; and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Music, Play, Light

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• I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Drinking, Writing, Clubs

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.416, OUP Oxford

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• That man will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only with gentlemen. To be a man of the world we must view that world in every grade and in every perspective.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Men, Views, Perfect

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• A gentleman's taste in dress is upon principle, the avoidance of all things extravagant. It consists in the quiet simplicity of exquisite neatness; but, as the neatness must be a neatness in fashion, employ the best tailor; pay him ready money, and, on the whole, you wi11 find him the cheapest.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Fashion, Simplicity, Principles

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• Fame confers a rank above that of gentleman and of kings. As soon as she issues her patent of nobility, it matters not a straw whether the recipient be the son of a Bourbon or of a tallow-chandler.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Kings, Son, Issues

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• Honest men are the gentlemen of nature.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Honesty, Men, Honest Man

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• Irony is to the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms he can invent.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Thinking, Doe, Irony

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• These people in the North-East of Ireland, from old prejudices perhaps more than from anything else, from the whole of their past history, would prefer, I believe, to accept the government of a foreign country rather than submit to be governed by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway.

  Bonar Law

  Country, Party, Believe

  Bonar Law's speech in the House of Commons, api.parliament.uk. January 1, 1913.

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• He is like to be mistaken who makes choice of a covetous man for a friend, or relieth upon the reed of narrow and poltroon friendship. Pitiful things are only to be found in the cottages of such breasts; but bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty and generous honesty are the gems of noble minds, wherein (to derogate from none) the true, heroic English gentleman hath no peer.

  Thomas Browne

  Honesty, Men, Choices

  Sir Thomas Browne (1835). “Sir Thomas Browne's Works: Repertorium. A letter to a friend. Christian morals. Certain miscellany tracts. Unpublished papers”, p.79

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• If it were not for quotations, conversations between gentlemen would consist of an endless series of 'what-ho!'s.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Conversation, Endless, Series

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• The British have their own conception of what constitutes the typical American. He must have a flavor of the Wild West about him. He must do spectacular things. He must not be punctilious about dignity, decorum and other refinements characteristic of the real British gentleman. The Yankee pictured by the Briton must be a bustler. If he is occasionally flagrantly indiscreet in speech and action, then he is so much more surely stamped the genuine article. The most typical American the British ever set their eyes on was, in their judgment, Theodore Roosevelt.

  B. C. Forbes

  Real, Eye, America

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• A certain ultra-dignified gentleman of unusual prominence carried himself so stiffly that nobody felt free to call him by his first name. He quarreled with a friend of earlier days and from then on the two never spoke. The day the friend died an associate found the ultra-dignified gentleman staring through the window. When he came out of his reverie, he soliloquized with a sigh, ""He was the last to call me John."" Is any man really entitled to regard himself a success who has failed to inspire at least a goodly number of fellow mortals to greet him by his first name?

  B. C. Forbes

  Friendship, Men, Numbers

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• Talking things over has its place in an organization [but] so-called conferences are being grossly overdone. One executive stops at the desk of another to tell him, perhaps, about the wonderful score he made at golf on Saturday afternoon. This chin-chin immediately becomes a conference, and neither the office boy nor the telephone operator must disturb either gentleman. More idle gossip is indulged in at many business conferences these days than an old wives' sewing circle would be guilty of.

  B. C. Forbes

  Golf, Boys, Talking

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• It is not a slight thing, gentlemen, to force a man to say what he is, or what he believes himself to be; for that supreme word of man, that single expression which he utters of and upon himself is decisive. It lays down the basis upon which all judgment of him is to be formed. From that moment all the acts of his life must correspond to the answer given by him.

  Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

  Believe, Men, Expression

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• We gentlemen, whose chariot's roll only upon the four aces, are apt to have a wheel out of order.

  John Vanbrugh

  Order, Four, Aces

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• 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

  Fighting, Ugly, Faces

  1847 Jane Eyre ch.17.

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• You must pardon me, gentlemen, for being a most unconscionable time a-dying.

  Charles II of England

  Dying, Pardon Me, Last Words

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• Starch makes the gentleman, etiquette the lady.

  Beau Brummell

  Etiquette

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