Not Quite A Gentleman Quotes & Sayings

I am shocked - excessively shocked! Your father would have been very glad to have left his ring to
Martin, let me tell you, only he thought it not right to leave it away from the heir!"
"Was it indeed a personal bequest?" inquired Gervase, interested. "That certainly must be held to enhance its value. It becomes, in fact, a
curio, for it must be quite the only piece of unentailed property which my father did bequeathe to me. I shall put it in a glass cabinet."
Martin, reddening, said: "I see what you are at! I'm not to be blamed if my father preferred me to you!"
"No, you are to be felicitated," said Gervase. — Georgette Heyer

No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that 'a gentleman does not cheat', than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers. — C.S. Lewis

There is always a thought of marriage between a single female and a personable gentleman, if not in his mind, quite certainly in hers. — Georgette Heyer

I believe journalism is coming to be regarded as quite a respectable occupation for gentlemen nowadays. — Anthony Trollope

My beloved Eudosia [a member of Buckley's household staff], who is Cuban, very large, quite old, and altogether superstitious, and speaks only a word or two of English (even though she has been with us for 19 years), is quite certain that the gentleman who raped the 16-year-old girl in New Caanan three years ago and escaped has successfully eluded the police only because of his resourceful determination to ravage Eudosia before he dies. Accordingly she demanded, and I gave her, a shotgun, into which I have inserted two empty shells. Still, Eudosia with blank cartridges is more formidable than Eugene McCarthy with The Bomb. — William F. Buckley Jr.

A gentleman who for reasons of chivalry I shall not mention, but who occupied grand office, and who had taken grandly of wine and allowed veritas to overcome him, went up to the Prime Minister and told her he had always fancied her, to which the Prime Minister replied, Quite right - you have very good taste but I just don't think you would make it at the moment. — Nicholas Fairbairn

You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly. — William Goldman

I have done very little besides sending away some of the large looking-glasses from my dressing-room, which was your father's. A very good man, and very much the gentleman I am sure: but I should think, Miss Elliot," (looking with serious reflection), "I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord! there was no getting away from one's self. So I got Sophy to lend me a hand, and we soon shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with my little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing that I never go near. — Jane Austen

I never quite got the hang of the getting drunk & fondling the thighs [of all the cumbersome young males] business ... whether that makes me a gallant & proper gentleman, a cowardly wuss or an unadventurous prude, I cannot make out — Stephen Fry

It has always seemed to me that if one falls in love with any gentleman one becomes instantly blind to his faults.But I am not blind to your faults, and I do not think that everything you do or say is right! Only - Is it being - not very comfortable - and cross - and not quite happy, when you aren't there?" "That, my darling," said his lordship,taking her ruthlessly into his arms,"is exactly what it s!" "Oh - !" Frederica gasped, as she emerged from an embrace which threatened to suffocate her. "Now I know! I am in love! — Georgette Heyer

It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband's own happiness, offered by this plan, convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant; otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act. — Charlotte Bronte

The Marquis of Harsfield Lord Franton, arrived after you left." Lady Endall said with some satisfaction. "He said he wished to be presented to Kim, and was quite dissapointed to find she was not there."
"Harsfield? He must be nearly eighty." Mairelon said, frowning. "What does he want with Kim?"
"No, no, Richard, you're thinking of the fourth Marquis of Harsfield," Lady Wendall said. "He died last year; it is the fifth Marquis who was asking after Kim. He is quite a young gentleman
not much above twenty, I think. He was the grandson of the previous marquis."
"Oh. I expect that's all right, then." Mairelon said, but he continued to frown. — Patricia C. Wrede

Miss Tarabotti was not one of life's milk-water misses
in fact, quite the opposite. Many a gentleman had likened his first meeting with her to downing a very strong cognac when one was expecting to imbibe fruit juice
that is to say, startling and apt to leave one with a distinct burning sensation. — Gail Carriger

Quite a few vampires, especially the elders, regarded those who creep through graveyard shadows in batwing capes and fingerless black gloves as an Edinburgh gentleman might look upon a Yankee with a single Scots grandparent who swathes himself in kilts and tartan sashes, prefaces every remark with quotes from Burns or Scott and affects a fondness for bagpipes and haggis. — Kim Newman

I am partial to ladies if they are nice. I suppose it is my nature. I am not quite a gentleman but you would hardly notice it. — Daisy Ashford

The side whiskers indeed were quite handsome. But he stroked them so very zealously that looking at him, one might very well think that first just the side whiskers had been brought into the world, and then later the gentleman was attached to them in order to stroke them. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It was difficult to image quite where this gentleman [a statue] could have come from: he was a little too cheerful for a saint in a church and not quite comical enough for a coffee-house sign. — Susanna Clarke

I wasn't raised to let a woman walk through a dimly lit parking lot alone. Wasn't born in a cornfield, you know."
Velia turned. "No, I didn't know. So, you're quite a gentleman. Don't we sound like a good pair - the devil woman and the gentleman? — Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

Merkin had used only one drop of the "just soap." Two drops would have made her Master walk slightly awkwardly. Three drops would have made a Victorian gentleman utter something really lustful, such as "you transfix me quite. — Sorin Suciu

The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights: he held firm possession, and proved to the attorney, who, in his turn, proved it to Mr. Linton, that Earnshaw had mortaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his mania for gaming; and he, Heathcliff, was the mortgagee.
In that manner, Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman in the neighbourhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father's inveterate enemy; and lives in his own house as a servant deprived of the advantage of wages, and quite unable to right himself, because of his friendlessness, and his ignorance that he has been wronged. — Emily Bronte

The pony having thoroughly satisfied himself as to the nature and properties of the fireplug, looked into the air after his old enemies the flies, and as there happened to be one of them tickling his ear at that moment he shook his head and whisked his tail, after which he appeared full of thought but quite comfortable and collected. The old gentleman having exhausted his powers of persuasion, alighted to lead him; whereupon the pony, perhaps because he held this to be a sufficient concession, perhaps because he happened to catch sight of the other brass plate, or perhaps because he was in a spiteful humour, darted off with the old lady and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come panting on behind — Charles Dickens

Are you also a professional soldier?
He grinned. "I'm more of a gentleman of adventure."
George laughed under his breath.
"I save these two from themselves," Gaston continued. "Occasionally I do a bit of skullduggery."
What? "Skullduggery?"
"Scale a ten-foot wall, jump out of the shadows, break a diplomat's neck, plant false documents on his body, and prevent an international incident type of thing to keep the war from breaking out," Gaston said helpfully. "Dreadful stuff, but quite necessary. — Ilona Andrews

To be sure, marriage is all in all with the ladies; but with us gentlemen it's quite another thing! — Fanny Burney

Didn't he? I thought he did that while quite improperly asked you to spend Sunday afternoon with him while you were in the company of another gentleman." "For goodness sake, Blackmoor, I don't know why it bothers you so much. After all, it's not as though you and I are actually on an outing." He turned surprised look on her and waved a hand to indicate their surrounding. "No? How is this not an outing? — Sarah MacLean

I really am a little afraid, my dear," hinted the cherub meekly, "that you are not enjoying yourself?"
"On the contrary," returned Mrs. Wilfer, "quite so. Why should I not?"
"I thought, my dear, that perhaps your face might - "
"My face might be a martyrdom, but what would that import, or who should know it, if I smiled?"
And she did smile; manifestly freezing the blood of Mr. George Sampson by so doing. For that young gentleman, catching her smiling eye, was so very much appalled by its expression as to cast about in his thoughts concerning what he had done to bring it down upon himself. — Charles Dickens

George Washington was quite a farmer. He was a farmer, Civil Engineer and gentleman. He made enough at civil engineering to indulge in both the other luxuries. — Will Rogers

The general burden of the Coolidge memoirs was that the right hon. gentleman was a typical American, and some hinted that he was the most typical since Lincoln. As the English say, I find myself quite unable to associate myself with that thesis. He was, in truth, almost as unlike the average of his countrymen as if he had been born green. The Americano is an expansive fellow, a back-slapper, full of amiability; Coolidge was reserved and even muriatic. The Americano has a stupendous capacity for believing, and especially for believing in what is palpably not true; Coolidge was, in his fundamental metaphysics, an agnostic. The Americano dreams vast dreams, and is hag-ridden by a demon; Coolidge was not mount but rider, and his steed was a mechanical horse. The Americano, in his normal incarnation, challenges fate at every step and his whole life is a struggle; Coolidge took things as they came. — H.L. Mencken

The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up, fore ever, on my best affections. Deep affliction has but strengthened and refined them.
As the old gentleman said this in a low voice: more to himself than to his companion: and as he remained silent for a short time afterwords: Oliver sat quite still. — Charles Dickens

The first Fae I ever fed off didn't survive. Purely by accident. I was young and still learning my strength. She was a red head. Caused quite a ruckus when I took the body home. I was being a gentleman, bringing back their stinking carcass and they try to kill me. Turns out dinner was actually some sort of princess. Damn, there are over fifty princesses. Were they really going to miss one? - Varian — Bridget Blackwood

The British call junzi a "gentleman," no surprise. The Americans have no gentlemen, so they translate junzi as "the superior man." The Germans have no gentlemen either, and "superior man" is reserved, so they call junzi an "edler" meaning a person of noble blood. To sum up, all Europeans call junzi anything but junzi, which is quite a scandal. — Thorsten J. Pattberg

Well," he begins, sitting up a bit taller, "I was being quite gallant, actually, and offered to help with her suitcase. And then we started talking and one thing led to another ... " Hadley grins. "And he's been carrying my suitcase ever since." "it's what any true gentleman would do," Oliver says with exaggerated modesty. "Especially the really gallant ones." The old woman seems pleased by this, her face folding into a map of tiny wrinkles. "And here you both are." Oliver smiles. "Here we are. — Jennifer E. Smith

But Maurice was clean-shaven, and, by the portraits shown to me, certainly quite beautiful; though he looked a little more like a tenor than a gentleman ought to look. James — G.K. Chesterton

A gentleman might have stopped then. She had climaxed, and she was still a virgin, and he was probably a beast for wanting to make love to her fully, but he simply couldn't ... not.
She was his.
But not, he was coming to realize, quite as much as he was hers. — Julia Quinn

The silly ass had left the kitchen door open, and I hadn't gone two steps when his voice caught me squarely in the eardrum.
'You will find Mr Wooster', he was saying to the substitue chappie, 'an extremely pleasant and amiable young gentleman, but not intelligent. By no means intelligent. Mentally he is negligible - quite negligible'.
Well, I mean to say. What!
I suppose, strictly speaking, I ought to have charged in and ticked the blighter off properly in no uncertain voice. But I doubht whether it is humanly possible to tick Jeeves off. — P.G. Wodehouse

When a gentleman spends quite some time telling me in detail about his father's courtship of his mother, I have to assume there is some moral for me in the tale. Since in this case that courtship consisted primarily of his father insisting repeatedly they were to marry and his mother refusing him almost as often, I take the moral to be that there is very little point in refusing, since it would only lead to the question being repeated until I agreed to it out of sheer exhaustion. — Abigail Reynolds

Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him. — Oscar Wilde

I knew a young lady of the last "romantic" generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare's Ophelia. Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favourite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Yes, Max is very hot." "Excuse me?" She laughed. "He's the knight, and you're the noble gentleman, silly. You're both hotties." Ethan snorted with a laugh. "On with the tour you noble hotty you." "You're a funny girl, but also quite hot." "Thanks." Ethan — Cheri Schmidt

The baron reminds me of someone, but I can't quite put my finger on who it is," Ramsey remarked.
"I swear my own father never talked to me the way Gillian's uncle just did."
"Your father died before you were old enough to know him."
"It was humiliating, damn it. He sure as certain wasn't what I expected. The way Gillian talked about him, I pictured a mild-mannered gentleman. She thinks he's ... gentle. Is the woman blind? How in God's name can she love such a crotchety old ... "
Ramsey's head snapped up, and he suddenly burst into laughter, breaking Brodick's train of thought. "It's you."
"What?"
"Morgan ... he reminds me of you. My God, Gillian married a man just like her uncle. Look at the baron and you'll see yourself in twenty years."
"Are you suggesting I'm going to become a belligerent, foul-tempered old man?"
"Hell, you're already belligerent and foul-tempered. No wonder she fell in love with you," he drawled — Julie Garwood

Celeste rejoined him. "How you ladies do love a bargain," he said.
"You were listening!"
"I left before you shared the secrets of your undergarments." Jack looked sheepish. "That didn't sound quite how I intended."
Celeste blushed. "You should not have mentioned it at all. A lady's undergarments are not a fit topic for a gentleman to discuss at a military dinner."
"Actually," he retorted, "you would be surprised at how often the subject comes up. — Marguerite Kaye

I saw myself as reviving a certain mode of life, a mode that had been almost lost: the contemplative life of the country gentleman, in harmony with his status and history. In Renaissance times they had called it sprezzatura. The idea was to do whatever one did with grace, to imbue one's every action with beauty, while at the same time making it look quite effortless. Thus, if one were to work at, say, law, one should raise it to the level of an art; if one were to laze, then one must laze beautifully. This, they said, was the true meaning of being an aristocrat. — Paul Murray

Shaw grinned again, wishing mightily that he and she were alone by the fire. "I never claimed to be much of a gentleman. But whether you tote about a parasol or not, you are every inch a lady. Quite possibly the finest I've ever met."
"Goodness. If you continue saying such things, I'll begin to think you're smitten with me."
"I'd describe it more as being clubbed into submission," he murmured, aware both that her palm had come to rest just over his heart, and that his men and the Mayfair mob across the fire pit could see it. "But yes, I am rather smitten with you. — Suzanne Enoch