Gent

“ An inexpressible respect gradually penetrated you and ascended to your head, and you felt that you had before you one of those powerful, well-bred, and indulgent souls whose thoughts are so great that they cannot but be gentle. ”

“ How elevated must be the tone of their thoughts, the style of their conversation! and what a lucky accident it was that led you to that goal to which all your wishes and hopes have been converging!—For how much can a man live—a single gentleman like myself—here in your city? ”

“ He was socially in demand—a thorough cosmopolite, a polished gentleman, a patron of the arts; a man known for his gentleness of disposition, his lovableness of character, his unflagging devotion to duty, and, above all, for his fearlessness. ”

“ His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe;
And, in a word, for far behind his worth
Comes all the praises that I now bestow,
He is complete in feature and in mind
With all good grace to grace a gentleman. ”

“ Such obloquy, although intended to hurt, does but little if any injury to those against whom it is directed; but what may we think of the gentlemanly spirit of the men who descend to it? As for myself I cannot restrain a feeling of profound pity when beholding the spectacle of such conduct, and I turn with a sense of relief to the honorable men amongst them who have remained true to the nobler instincts of human nature. ”

“ Even if these gentlemen are well-educated, artistic, and admirable conversationalists, I cannot admit that they are living the good life. Human nature imposes some limitation of sympathy, but not such a degree as that. ”

“ Gentleman.—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." ”

“ From the etymology of the word to the humanity of the character, a full, forcible, frank, and fervent discussion of the Gentleman is given, as he figures in history, in society, in domestic life, and in literature,—and as he lives, a grand and gracious ideal, in the consciousness of the author. ”

“ Handsome beyond the ordinary, a finished gentleman and all that, he has, in addition to these advantages, a way with him that goes straight to the heart in spite of prejudice and the claims of conscience. ”

“ Are they not a mirror which often does, and always should, reflect the soul? For instance, is not a person of mild temper, gentle in manners? Has not another a bold and independent disposition, a forward and fearless manner? ”

“ Take care to stamp upon it only the images of virtue and of piety. Strive to lay the foundation of an amiable and an useful character. Endeavour to gain a spirit of meekness, of gentleness, and of sincerity. ”

“ High and low, rich and poor, mutually respect each other’s feelings without reference to the wealth or social status of either; and this is after all the essence of what constitutes the true gentleman. ”

“ We have, indeed, but to visualize clearly the spectacle of a gentleman shaving himself and put beside it the spectacle of a gentleman starching and curling his whiskers, to see the finer personal dignity that has come with the general adoption of the razor. ”

“ be mild, and cleave to gentle things,
Thy glory and thy happiness be there. ”

“ But pause and listen, first of all, gentle reader, to the living testimony of a poet heart, brimful, and gushing over with home love:—“There are not, in the unseen world, voices more gentle and more true, that may be more implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give none but the tenderest counsel, as the voices in which the spirits of the fireside and the hearth address themselves to human kind!” ”

“ Eh, gentlemen, let us reckon upon accidents! Life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink. Nothing makes the future look so bright as surveying it through a glass of chambertin.” ”

“ And that I for one shall instantly proceed to do. Those gentlemen who think with me will no doubt follow my example. You will be left to enjoy an orgie which a mentally, morally, and physically diseased imagination alone could have conceived. ”

“ Here lives our gentleman the greater portion of the year; lives aspiringly according to his Wordsworthian creed. He eschews or uses with admirable moderation the coarser pleasures and vanities of life. Unselfishness, gentleness, and nicety of thought and speech are the custom of his household. He himself finds congenial occupation in literary or scientific research, in the hope of adding some book or monograph to the world's store of art or knowledge. ”

“ Indeed, the real seat of all superiority, even of manners, must be placed in the mind: dignified sentiments, superior courage, accompanied with genuine and universal courtesy, are always necessary to constitute the real gentleman ”

“ There it is that we call up, in long review, the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene ”

“ A high sense of rectitude, a lowly soul, with a pure and kind heart are elements of nobility which will work out in the life of a human being at home—everywhere. "Private refinement makes public gentility." ”

“ O one quality of the mind and heart is more important as an element conducive to worldly success than civility—that feeling of kindness and love for our fellow-beings which is expressed in pleasing manners. Yet how many of our young men, with an affected contempt for the forms and conventionalities of life, assume to despise those delicate attentions, that exquisite tenderness of thought and manner, that mark the true gentleman. ”

“ I acted in that way chiefly because of the man. You don’t know what our underlings are like—it is impossible to pass over the smallest breach of discipline. But I assure you I know a gentleman when I see him. ”

“ He preserves the dignity of his unhappy characters by a delicate sincerity in their attitude toward one another and by an immeasurable gentleness and self-forgetfulness on the part of the one most wronged. ”

“ Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties. ”

“ Cultivate then a tender conscience, a conscience which shall have power to rule alike your thoughts and actions. Cultivate a tender conscience. In One word, be gentlemen in all the feelings, science. principles and chivalry of gentlehood. ”

“ The Testimonies of several great, learned, and virtuous personages among the Gentiles, urged against the excesses of the age, in favour of the self-denial, temperance, and piety, recommended in the first part of this discourse. ”

“ But there are emotions of the pathetic that are simple and direct, and others—that are complex and revolutionary; some—to which the heart yields with gentleness; others—against which it struggles with pride ”

“ That peculiar gentleness of disposition, which is their general characteristic, immediately manifested itself in all their looks and actions, and gave full employment to those who made the human heart their study. ”

“ I do not in the least see why courtesy, and gravity, and sympathy with the feelings of others, and courage, and truth, and piety, and what else goes to make up a gentleman's character, should not be found behind a counter as well as elsewhere, if they were demanded, or even hoped for, there. ”

“ Gentlemen, whenever I have tried to hold up to admiration their fortitude, patience, gentleness, the reasonableness of their nature, so accessible to persuasion, and their extraordinary goodness one towards another, I have done so because I have first genuinely felt that admiration myself, and have been thoroughly imbued with the sentiment which I sought to communicate to others. ”

“ As a just and elevated thought clearly and gracefully expressed is evidence of a well-trained mind, so every act, however unimportant, and every gesture, however insignificant, is evidence of the kindly, considerate, modest, loyal nature of the true gentleman, or—of the reverse. ”

“ "I take it that 'gentleman' is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as 'a man,' we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,—to life—to time—to eternity. ”

“ What is your parentage? 'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: 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. ”

“ The look of the gentleman, ‘the nobleman-look,’ is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world. ”

“ If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, of joys, of base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own, which he thinks so peculiarly isolated from the web of life, how much kinder, how much gentler he would be! ”

“ But above it shines, with a steady light, your sympathy, your benevolence, your gentleness of heart, and your warm appreciation of the virtues, rude but sincere, of a people whose condition it is necessary to improve, in order to make them contented and happy. ”

“ But in our land the real gentleman stands for such personal qualities as honesty, truthfulness, gentleness and gracefulness which characterize a boy or man. Such a gentleman subjects his appetite, refines his taste, subdues his feelings and controls his speech. ”

“ In the creation of the gentleman as well as of the thinker, the personal equation counts. In fact, it counts for more in the making of the gentleman. For in this making truth is less important than the personality. In the gentleman intellectual altruism and moral appreciativeness are large elements. ”

“ A high sense of honor, a determination never to take a mean advantage of another, and an adherence to truth, delicacy, and politeness towards those with whom one may have dealings, are the essential and distinguishing characteristics of a gentleman. ”

“ Thousands of the young gentlemen, devoted to the favorite pursuits of the present time, will get through existence with no worse consequences to themselves than a coarse tone of mind and manners, and a lamentable incapability of feeling any of those higher and gentler influences which sweeten and purify the lives of more cultivated men. ”

“ The best of men
That e’er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed. ”

“ But it flourishes for all that, and all genteel people, looking into each other's eyes with the desperation of gentility, agree to endure it for gentility's sake. My instance may seem feeble, and I speak honestly when I say I might give others, forming part of an immense body of prescriptive usage, to which a society possessing in the largest manner, both by temperament and education, the sense of the "inalienable" rights and comforts of the individual, contrives to accommodate itself. ”

“ Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes good-nature or benevolence: manhood first, and then gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. ”

“ And what a school of politeness is such a contemplation of the past! To take everything objectively, to be angry at nothing, to love nothing, to understand everything—makes one gentle and pliable. ”