Gentleman quotes
747 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside gentleman — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"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."
"My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will."
"East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, whobuilt his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;MCato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present."
"What do you know what goes on inside a man's mind? Outside he may look like a gentleman, but inside ' e may 'ave the 'ankering for murder."
"As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unaquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood--a circumstance at all times unpleasant."
"In proceeding to the dining-room, the gentleman gives one arm to the lady he escorts--it is unusual to offer both."
"Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; answer them for me."
"I know you'll probably get angry with me for that, shout, stamp your feet: "speak just for yourself and your miseries in the underground, and don't go saying 'we all.'" Excuse me, gentleman, but I am not justifying myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and, what's more, you've taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves. So that I, perhaps, come out even more "living" than you."
"Suppose, gentleman, that man is not stupid."
"..., twice two is four is not life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death."
"Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void."
"A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't."
"The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, 'Men never know when things are dirty or not;' and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, 'Women will have their little nonsense and needless cares.'"
"For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word."
"There is rough work to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it."
"A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say simply "fineness of nature."
"Ladies and gentlemen, the great number seven, Mickey Mantle."
"Blessed be those happy ages that were strangers to the dreadful fury of these devilish instruments of artillery, whose inventor I am satisfied is now in Hell, receiving the reward of his cursed invention, which is the cause that very often a cowardly base hand takes away the life of the bravest gentleman."
"Life in clubs is no paltry sign of the times we live in. Here gentlemen gamble with others whom they would not dream of inviting to their homes."
