Quotes & Sayings About Chivalry

Since then the romances of chivalry had been superseded by the flowering of literature that we know as the Spanish Golden Age, and by Cervantes's time nobody considered them to be a threat any more. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Chivalry is not dead and you should be a gentleman. But if you are going to buy a girl a drink, buy it. Don't just offer it. Follow through. — Mila Kunis

Although I have a lot of close female friends in my life, my number one is still my mom. Without her, I wouldn't have the values that I have and see the world the way that I do today. She taught me how to appreciate and respect women. She taught me chivalry and how to love a woman and respect their feelings and emotions. — Shemar Moore

The fantastic graces of Chivalry lay upon the surface of life,but beneath it was a half-savage population,fierce and animal,with little ruth or mercy. — Arthur Conan Doyle

You remind me of an old cat I once had. Whenever he killed a mouse he would bring it into the drawing-room and lay it affectionately at my feet. I would reject the corpse with horror and turn him out, but back he would come with his loathsome gift. I simply couldn't make him understand that he was not doing me a kindness. He thought highly of his mouse and it was beyond him to realize that I did not want it.
You are just the same with your chivalry. It's very kind of you to keep offering me your dead mouse; but honestly I have no use for it. I won't take favors just because I happen to be a female. — P.G. Wodehouse

A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do. — Haruki Murakami

Wolfe was going on. "I didn't have a client this morning, or even an hour ago, but now I have. Mr. Rowcliff's ferocious spasms, countenanced by you gentlemen, have made the challenge ineluctable. When Mr. Goodwin said that I was not concerned in this matter and that he was acting solely in his own personal interest, he was telling the truth. As you may know, he is not indifferent to those attributes of young women that constitute the chief reliance of our race in our gallant struggle against the menace of the insects. He is especially vulnerable to young women who possess not only those more obvious charms but also have a knack of stimulating his love of chivalry and adventure and his preoccupation with the picturesque and the passionate. — Rex Stout

After all of this you're still 'Rayhan the Chivalrous', full of hope and optimism? — Elizabeth Carlton

For my part, I may speak it to my shame,
I have a truant been to chivalry;
And so I hear he doth account me too. — William Shakespeare

Sir Walter Scott created rank & caste in the South and also reverence for and pride and pleasure in them. Life on the Mississippi
Don Quixote swept admiration for medieval chivalry-silliness out of existence. Ivanhoe restored it. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi — Mark Twain

Don't we see that men's rightful task is to go out to work and wear themselves out trying to accumulate wealth, as though they were our factors or stewards, so that we can remain at home like the lady of the house directing their work and enjoying the profit of their labors? That, if you like, is the reason why men are naturally stronger and more robust than us - they need to be, so they can put up with the hard labor they must endure in our service. — Moderata Fonte

Chivalry is not just a fancy word with a neat meaning; it's a way of life. — Vaughn Ripley

The only thing I want more than you, is to do right by you. — Angela N. Blount

I stepped forward. Call me old-fashioned, but I wanted to keep his focus on me and not Annabeth. I think it's polite for a guy to protect his girlfriend from instant incineration. — Rick Riordan

The sword was a very elegant weapon in the days of the samurai. You had honor and chivalry much like the knights, and yet it was a gruesome and horrific weapon. — Dustin Diamond

I often think a lot of women's attraction to vampires is based on the fact that vampires come from centuries ago, from eras of chivalry and courtly virtues. — Stephen Moyer

The first two crusades brought the flower of European chivalry to Constantinople and restored that spiritual union between Eastern and Western Christendom that had been interrupted by the great schism of the Greek and Roman Churches. — Joseph Jacobs

Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is some dim connection between brains and brutality, or that it does not matter if a man is dull so long as he is also mean? Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as sentiment and all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are, like all men, primarily inspired by religion. For them, as for all men, the first fact is their notion of the nature of things; their idea about what world they are living in. And it is their faith that the only ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is evil. They believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead things must be stronger than living things; whether those dead things are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and rivers and forces of nature. — G.K. Chesterton

The world's male chivalry has perished out, but women are knights-errant to the last; and, if Cervantes had been greater still, he had made his Don a Donna. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Protect the ArchGovernor! Mustang shouts at me, voice more composed than my own, making me feel an idiot obsessed with chivalry. Of course she does not need me to save her. — Pierce Brown

My further advice on your relations to women is based upon that other motto of chivalry, Serve all, love one. — Honore De Balzac

When his apprenticeship was finished (the candidate for Knighthood) was received into the Knightly Order by a ritual of sacramental awe ... — Ariel Durant

Fine!" he relented, giving her a dirty look. "But only if you stay in front."
She rolled her eyes. "My, what chivalry."
"To hell with chivalry. Your idea, you die first. — Gina Damico

What if custom is wrong? demanded the part of her that believed in the code of chivalry. A knight must set things right. — Tamora Pierce

It is hard to feel safe and comfortable when the only measures for what is safe and comfortable are normative ideas you don't abide by. — Samhita Mukhopadhyay

Thus the castle of each feudal chieftain became a school of chivalry, into which any noble youth, whose parents were from poverty unable to educate him to the art of war, was readily received. — Horatio Alger

I named my album Year of the Gentleman. Just looking at how the essence of what it is to be a gentleman is very much lacking nowadays. Someone said to me that chivalry is dead, and I hated to have to agree, but it's true. — Ne-Yo

The idea of a stag hunt evokes chivalry - knights in jerkins and hose, ladies on sidesaddles with wimples and billowing dresses, a white stag symbolizing something-or-other, and Robin Hood getting in the way. An actual stag hunt is more like a horseback meeting of a county planning commission. — P. J. O'Rourke

Sadly as some old mediaeval knight
Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield,
The sword two-handed and the shining shield
Suspended in the hall, and full in sight,
While secret longings for the lost delight
Of tourney or adventure in the field
Came over him, and tears but half concealed
Trembled and fell upon his beard of white,
So I behold these books upon their shelf,
My ornaments and arms of other days;
Not wholly useless, though no longer used,
For they remind me of my other self,
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways
In which I walked, now clouded and confused. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life ... — Barbara Tuchman

You end up with this succession of periods when everything was marvellous - from King Arthur to the medieval times, Ivanhoe, chivalry, Henry VIII, Merry England, the Blitz — Ian Hislop

Other Courtesies have been -
Other Courtesy may be -
We commend ourselves to thee
Paragon of Chivalry. — Emily Dickinson

All peace-loving women shut up when they sense they have stepped onto Guy Turf. Guy Turf is a murky realm of ego and pride and chivalry and testosterone and heroism. — Jeanne Marie Laskas

For he did not, he would have said, care for women; he never felt at home or at ease with them; and that monstrous creature beginning to be talked about, the New Woman of the nineties, filled him with horror. He was a quiet, conventional person, and the world, viewed from the haven of Brookfield, seemed to him full of distasteful innovations; there was a fellow named Bernard Shaw who had the strangest and most reprehensible opinions; there was Ibsen, too, with his disturbing plays; and there was this new craze for bicycles which was being taken up by women equally with men. Chips did not hold with all this modern newness and freedom. He had a vague notion, if he ever formulated it, that nice women were weak, timid, and delicate, and that nice men treated them with a polite but rather distant chivalry. — James Hilton

A proper Irishman always does what a lady asks him. Sure an' it's been the ruin av us. We're at the mercy av the petticoats. — L.M. Montgomery

It was protective, on her side; sprang from a sense of being in league together, a presentiment of something that was bound to part them (they spoke of marriage always as a catastrophe), which led to this chivalry, this protective feeling which was much more on her side than Sally's. — Virginia Woolf

Only in the Roman Empire and in Spain under Arab domination has culture been a potent factor. Under the Arab, the standard attained was wholly admirable; to Spain flocked the greatest scientists, thinkers, astronomers, and mathematicians of the world, and side by side there flourished a spirit of sweet human tolerance and a sense of purist chivalry. Then with the advent of Christianity, came the barbarians. — Adolf Hitler

The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ah, senor!" said the niece, "your worship had better order these to be burned as well as the others; for it would be no wonder if, after being cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a fancy to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and piping; or, what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is an incurable and infectious malady. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I've twice run against women opponents, and it's a very different kind of approach. For those of us who have some chivalry left, there's a level of respect ... You treat some things as a special treasure; you treat other things as common. — Mike Huckabee

I did a research assignment on life in the Middle Ages only last year. I found the era fascinating, all that chivalry and court romance. But I never pictured anything as poor as this village. This is the pits. There's no romance here, definitely no chivary. And it stinks
of sweat and smoke and sewage. — Marianne Curley

The only path of escape he could conceive as yet for Lady Harman lay through the chivalry of some other man. That a woman could possibly rebel against one man without the sympathy and moral maintenance of another was still outside the range of Mr. Brumley's understanding. It is still outside the range of most men's understandings -- and of a great many women's. — H.G.Wells

Chivalry isn't really dead you know." "Oh?" "Nah. That guy's just an asshole. — Tammara Webber

So the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of horns similar to his own, and have therefore been formed for the purpose of combating other stags for the exclusive possession of the females; who are observed, like the ladies in the times of chivalry, to attend to the car of the victor. The final cause of this contest amongst the males seems to be, that the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved. — Erasmus Darwin

In the system of chivalry, men protect women against men. This is not unlike the protection relationship which [organized crime] established with small businesses in the early part of this century. Indeed, chivalry is an age-old protection racket which depends for its existence on rape. — Susan Griffin

She remembered reading how the American South had often compared itself to Rome back before the Civil War. In the old days their society had been all about impressive architecture, honor, and codes of chivalry. And on the evil side, it had also been about slavery. Rome had slaves, some Southerners had argued, so why shouldn't we?
Annabeth shivered. She loved the architecture here. The houses and the gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects. — Rick Riordan

I heard that chivalry was dead, but I think it's just got a bad flue. — Meg Ryan

Here is the world of imagination, hopes, and dreams. In this timeless land of enchantment, the age of chivalry, magic and make-believe are reborn - and fairy tales come true. Fantasyland is dedicated to the young-in-heart, to those who that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true. — Walt Disney Company

Let you win? I heard somethin' about that chivalry shit, but when I get behind a start line, the only gender I see is Ford or Chevy. — Eden Connor

If you're walking with your lady on the sidewalk, I still like to see a man walking street-side, to protect the lady from traffic. I grew up with that, and I hate to see something like that get lost. I still like to see that a man opens the door. I like those touches of chivalry that are fast disappearing. — Betty White

The word Chivalry is derived from the French cheval, a horse. — Thomas Bulfinch

I know you can take care of yourself," he said, with absolute certainty. His vivid eyes probed hers. With the same underlying resolve, he lifted a hand and brushed her cheek with his fingertips. "I just don't think ... you shouldn't have to. — Angela N. Blount

The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice. — James Weldon Johnson

Don't worry. Chivalry has practically no appeal for me whatsoever.
Neville Fletcher — Georgette Heyer

It's odd that men feel they must protect women, since for the most part they must be protected from men. — Abigail Scott Duniway

Even if I'd been wide awake, I knew Dimitri would've taken my suitcase anyway. That's how he was, a lost remnant of chivalry in the modern world, ever-ready to help others. — Richelle Mead

Aren't you just a knight in shining armor? ... Wherever do you keep your horse? And who scoops up the crap it leaves behind? — Myra McEntire

Chivalry is a poor substitute for justice, if one cannot have both. Chivalry is something like the icing on the cake, sweet but not nourishing. — Nellie L. McClung

I find British men very gentlemanly ... like opening doors. There is a certain chivalry about British men which I like, and I'm a sucker for an accent. — Rachel McAdams

My answer came out at once. For me, chivalry isn't dead; it's an involuntary reflex. It could have been any woman asking for help, and I'd have said the same thing. It might have taken me a second or two longer, but I would have. For Elaine, there was no need to think about it for even that long. I'll help. — Jim Butcher

The institution of chivalry forms one of the most remarkable features in the history of the Middle Ages. — Horatio Alger

Suddenly, everything was easy and clear. I simply did whatever Chade told me to do, and trusted to him to have it turn out right. My spirit rode high on the crest of that wave of faith, and sometime during the night it occurred to me: this was what Burrich had had from Chivalry, and what he missed so badly. — Robin Hobb

Certain girls deserve lots of flowers. You are one of them. — Dan Pearce

Gentleman: An imaginary creature found in Jane Austen novels. — Natalya Vorobyova

Could you really catch me? (Serenity)
Absolutely. Besides, Barney would have my head if I let you make a mess on the deck. (Morgan)
Oh, thanks. I'm glad chivalry is alive and well on the high seas. (Serenity) — Kinley MacGregor

Wehehehehell, if it isn't Ollie-Ollie-oxidant-free ... "
You can take ... all the tea in China ... put it in a big brown ... bag for me.
He's as sweet as tupelo honey; he's an angel of the first degree.
Men with insight ... men in granite ... knights in armor bent on ... chivalry.
He's as sweet as ... tupelo honey; just like honey, baby ... from the bee."
=> For those who read and liked "When Irish eyes are sparkling"
Can i have a musician here? — Tom Collins

Her name was Hildegardis, and she was acknowledged far and wide as the fairest of maidens. — Friedrich Heinrich Karl De La Motte Fouque

I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat — George Bernard Shaw

Hello, Fortitude," Chivalry said, his voice grave and calm. — M.L. Brennan

Starling lowered her voice, but it carried anyway. "He is FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry the Abdicated. And you are the Fool."
"Once, perhaps, I was the Fool. It is common knowledge here in Jhaampe. But now I am the Toymaker. As I no longer use the other title, you may take it for yourself if you wish. As for Tom, I believe he takes the title Bed Bolster these days."
"I will be seeing the Queen about this."
"A wise decision. If you wish to become her Fool, she is certainly the one you must see. But for now, let me show you something else. No, step back, please, so you can see it all. Here it comes." I heard the slam and the latch. "The outside of my door," the Fool announced gladly. "I painted it myself. Do you like it? — Robin Hobb

Wake up! You're a sacred soul and glory is yours for the taking. — Stefan Emunds

My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading other books that might be a light to my soul. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life. — Bert V. Royal

Chivalry should be consensual. — Emma Watson

You're being too nice about all this," she said. "You're right about that," he said, surprising her. "If you'd stop being so pitiful, I could drop the whole chivalry thing and stare at your tits. — Joey W. Hill

You have an alarming streak of chivalry for a butler. I'd accuse you of aping your betters, but I have met your houseguests. — Caroline Dunford

He who defends with love will be secure; Heaven will save him, and protect him with love. — Lao-Tzu

To the traveller imbued with a feeling for the historical and poetical, so inseparately interwined in the annals of romantic Spain, the Alhambra is a much an object of devotion as is the Caaba to all true Moslems. How many legends and traditions, true and fabulous, - how many songs and ballards, Arabian and Spanish, of love and war and chivalry, are associated with this Oriental pile! — Washington Irving

I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. — Edmund Burke

What Melanie did was no more than all Southern girls were taught to do: to make those about them feel at ease and pleased with themselves. It was this happy feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land in which men were contented, uncontradicted, and safe in possession of unpunctured vanity was likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So from the cradle to the grave, women strove to make men pleased with themselves, and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration. In fact, men willingly gave the ladies everything in the world, except credit for having intelligence.
Scarlett exercised the same charms as Melanie but with a studied artistry and consummate skill. The difference between the two girls lay in the fact that Melanie spoke kind and flattering words from a desire to make people happy, if only temporarily, and Scarlett never did it except to further her own aims. — Margaret Mitchell

Across the hillside, above the chaos of Montfort's left flank, a scarlet banner was raised by Edward's men, the dragon at its centre a terror wreathed in golden flames, a sign that there was to be no mercy. The noblemen who survived the battle would be taken prisoner and ransomed, but no such chivalry awaited the foot soldiers beyond. — Robyn Young

Chivalry is like a line of credit. You can get plenty of it when you do not need it. — Nellie L. McClung

Chivalry was a poor substitute for love. — Sarah M. Eden

Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted, my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it ... And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my rescue - out of charity and out of chivalry ... - and said, "Are these toys any good to you? They amuse some people." — Winston Churchill

Expressed itself not only in politics, but also in art, romance, chivalry, and war. It expressed itself very little in the intellectual world, because education was almost wholly confined to the clergy. The explicit philosophy of the Middle Ages is not an accurate mirror of the times, but only of what was thought by one party. Among ecclesiastics, however
especially among the Franciscan friars
a certain — Bertrand Russell

It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry 'masculine' when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man's sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as 'feminine. — C.S. Lewis

Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both. — Alice Stone Blackwell

It's looking like a quiet night," [Magnus] said. "Come on. Finish up and let me take you home."
"Is this chivalry?" Catarina said with a smile. "Thought that was dead."
"Like us, it never dies. — Cassandra Clare

He thought of his love now as duty. — Mary Elizabeth Braddon

For a knight to ride in a carriage was against the principles of chivalry and he never under any circumstances rode a mare. — Barbara W. Tuchman

The very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady. — Thomas Malory

And in the mean time I'll fight dragons, just like any knight for his lady. — L.J.Smith

It's only Christian to be chivalrous to your enemies. — James Clavell

I admit it is better fun to punt than be punted, and that a desire to have all the fun is nine-tenths of the law of chivalry. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Beside him, Gauri looked distraught. Chivalry demanded that he
should inquire after the Princess's well- being. She caught
him looking at her and frowned:
"You're heaving like a water buffalo in its death throes."
Never mind. — Roshani Chokshi

[G]enerosity ... is the mistress and queen that gives lustre to every virtue, as it is not hard to prove. Where could one find a man, however powerful and rich, who isn't blamed if he is mean? And who, though not appreciated for his many other qualities, doesn't earn praise by his generosity? Liberality on its own makes a worthy man; and that can't be achieved by high birth, courtliness, wisdom, nobility, wealth, strength, chivalry, boldness, authority, beauty, or anything else. But just as the rose is more lovely than any other flower when it opens fresh and new, so where liberality appears it surpasses all other virtues and increases five hundred times the qualities it finds in a worthy, upright man. — Chretien De Troyes

Now let me ask my countrymen, Have you ever granted a moment's thought to this very vital problem in the building of our nation ? Have you devised any practical remedies to combat this evil ? Will you, my countrymen, go on without making any intelligent effort to lay the axe at the root of this weaknss and misery ? Will you allow the noted chivalry and the noble hardihood of the Indian to sink into oblivion ? Will you make it a thing entirely of the past ? I implore you, I beseech you, I exhort you my brethren in the name of all that is dearest to you to shake off the lethargy, to show to this world that you were sleeping the sleep of lions only, to rise again with redoubled energy and courage to take the work of rebuilding your nation in right earnest. — Kodi Rammurthy Naidu

Because of their DNA, most men loved a damsel in distress. Every time a man sees a pretty lass in trouble, even the boorish slob-of-a-man transforms into a chivalrous knight-in-shining-armour. This was why most women (no matter how strong, competent or resourceful) were forced to act shy, demure and helpless so that their men could feel like strong grizzly bears or ferocious mountain lions. — Mallika Nawal

My theme is chivalry. I have tried to show that this old tradition is practical and vital. The ideal embodied in Launcelot is 'escapism' in a sense never dreamed of by those who use that word; it offers the only possible escape from a world divided between wolves who do not understand, and sheep who cannot defend, the things which make life desirable. — C.S. Lewis

But chivalry's day is over. One day soon moss will grow in the tilt yard. The days of the moneylender have arrived, and the days of the swaggering privateer; banker sits down with banker, and kings are their waiting boys. — Hilary Mantel