Gentlemen

Gentlemen initially denoted well-educated men of good family and distinction. In this sense, the word equates with the French gentilhomme ("nobleman"), which latter term was, in Great Britain, long confined to the peerage. The word gentry derives from the old term Adel, but without the strict technical requirements of those traditions, such as quarters of nobility. To a degree, gentleman signified a man with an income derived from property, a legacy or some other source, and was thus independently wealthy and did not need to work. The term was particularly used of those who could not claim nobility or even the rank of esquire. Widening further, it became a politeness for all men, as in the phrase Ladies and Gentlemen. In modern speech, the term is usually democratised so as to include any man of good, courteous conduct, or even to all men (as in indications of gender-separated facilities, or as a sign of the speaker's own courtesy when addressing others).

Sourced

• The taste of beauty, and the relish of what is decent, just and amiable, perfects the character of the gentleman and the philosopher. And the study of such a taste or relish will, as we suppose, be ever the great employment and concern of him who covets as well to be wise and good, as agreeable and polite.
  • Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), "Miscellany III".

• Tho' modest, on his unembarrass'd brow
  Nature had written—"Gentleman."
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto IX, Stanza 83.

• I was ne'er so thrummed since I was a gentleman.
  • Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore (1604), Part I, Act IV, scene 2.

• 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.
  • Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore (1604), Part I, Act I, scene 2.

• 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.

• His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.
  • John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Part I, line 645.

• My master hath been an honourable gentleman; tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act V, scene 3, line 238.

• I freely told you, all the wealth I had
  Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act III, scene 2, line 257.

• A gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself 'Armigero;' in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, 'Armigero.'
  • William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597; published 1602), Act I, scene 1, line 9.

• We are gentlemen,
  That neither in our hearts, nor outward eyes
  Envy the great, nor do the low despise.
  • William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c. 1607-08), Act II, scene 3, line 25.

• Since every Jack became a gentleman,
  There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 3, line 72.

• An affable and courteous gentleman.
  • William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1593-94), Act I, scene 2, line 98.

• "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, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act I, scene 5, line 310.

• He is complete in feature, and in mind,
  With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act II, scene 4, line 73.

• You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?
  • Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals (1775), Act IV, scene 2.

• As for gentlemen, they be made good cheap in this kingdom; for whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the Universities, who professeth the liberal sciences, and (to be short) who can live idly, and without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master, and shall be taken for a gentleman.
  • Sir Thomas Smith, Commonwealth of England, b. 1, c. 20; Steph. Com., Vol. 2 (9th ed.), 619; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 51, n. 4.

• The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne;
  For a man by nothing is so well bewrayed
  As by his manners.
  • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book VI, Canto III, Stanza 1.

• And thus he bore without abuse
  The grand old name of gentleman,
  Defamed by every charlatan
  And soiled with all ignoble use.
  • Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), CX, Stanza 6.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 310.

• Oh! St. Patrick was a gentleman,
  Who came of decent people.
  • Henry Bennett, St. Patrick was a Gentleman.

• Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; also the Kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne.
  • Juliana Berners, Heraldic Blazonry.

• A gentleman I could never make him, though I could make him a lord.
  • James I of England, to his old nurse, who begged him to make her son a gentleman.

Unsourced

• You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher of manners.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman.
  • Benjamin Disraeli

• Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings.
  • William Hazlitt

• He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another's virtue.
  • Victor Hugo

• Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.
  • John Locke

• Gentleman is a term which does not apply to any station, but to the mind and the feelings in every station.
  • Thomas Noon Talfourd

• What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?
  • William Thackeray

• He is gentle that doth gentle deeds.
  • Anonymous

• If you are a Gentleman, then nothing else matters. And, if you aren't a Gentleman, then nothing else matters.
  • Commandant, Indian Military Academy, Dehradun (2005).