Distinguished Gentleman Quotes

On the second and the third night there was again a ball -- this time in mid-ocean, during a furious storm sweeping over the ocean, which roared like a funeral mass and rolled up mountainous seas fringed with mourning silvery foam. The Devil, who from the rocks of Gibraltar, the stony gateway of two worlds, watched the ship vanish into night and storm, could hardly distinguish from behind the snow the innumerable fiery eyes of the ship. The Devil was as huge as a cliff, but the ship was even bigger, a many-storied, many-stacked giant, created by the arrogance of the New Man with his ancient heart.

Govinda spoke: “You’re saying: you’re on a pilgrimage, and I believe in you. But, forgive me, oh Siddhartha, you do not look like a pilgrim. You’re wearing a rich man’s garments, you’re wearing the shoes of a distinguished gentleman, and your hair, with the fragrance of perfume, is not a pilgrim’s hair, not the hair of a Samana.

The distinguishing mark of the nineteenth century is that when a noble, self-esteemed gentleman meets a man of courage, he either kills him, or claps him into jail, or humiliates him otherwise, until the latter sooner or later dies heart-broken.

you were either a gentleman or not a gentleman, and if you were a gentleman you struggled to behave as such, whatever your income might be … Probably the distinguishing mark of the upper-middle class was that its traditions were not to any extent commercial, but mainly military, official, and professional. People in this class owned no land, but they felt that they were landowners in the sight of God and kept up a semi-aristocratic outlook by going into the professions and the fighting services rather than into trade. Small boys used to count the plum stones on their plates and foretell their destiny by chanting ‘Army, Navy, Church, Medicine, Law’.

It is often said that what most immediately sets English apart from other languages is the richness of its vocabulary. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (184,000) and far more than in French (a mere 100,000). The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinction unavailable to non-English speakers. The French, for instance, cannot distinguish between house and home, between mind and brain, between man and gentleman, between “I wrote” and “I have written.” The Spanish cannot differentiate a chairman from a president, and the Italians have no equivalent of wishful thinking. In Russia there are no native words for efficiency, challenge, engagement ring, have fun, or take care [all cited in The New York Times, June 18, 1989]. English, as Charlton Laird has noted, is the only language that has, or needs, books of synonyms like Roget’s Thesaurus. “Most speakers of other languages are not aware that such books exist” [The Miracle of Language, page 54]. On the other hand, other languages have facilities we lack. Both French and German can distinguish between knowledge that results from recognition (respectively connaître and kennen) and knowledge that results from understanding (savoir and wissen). Portuguese has words that differentiate between an interior angle and an exterior one. All the Romance languages can distinguish between something that leaks into and something that leaks out of. The Italians even have a word for the mark left on a table by a moist glass (culacino) while the Gaelic speakers of Scotland, not to be outdone, have a word for the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whiskey. (Wouldn’t they just?) It’s sgriob. And we have nothing in English to match the Danish hygge (meaning “instantly satisfying and cozy”), the French sang-froid, the Russian glasnost, or the Spanish macho, so we must borrow the term from them or do without the sentiment. At the same time, some languages have words that we may be pleased to do without. The existence in German of a word like schadenfreude (taking delight in the misfortune of others) perhaps tells us as much about Teutonic sensitivity as it does about their neologistic versatility. Much the same could be said about the curious and monumentally unpronounceable Highland Scottish word sgiomlaireachd, which means “the habit of dropping in at mealtimes.” That surely conveys a world of information about the hazards of Highland life—not to mention the hazards of Highland orthography. Of

To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart britchka—a light spring-carriage of the sort affected by bachelors, retired lieutenant-colonels, staff-captains, land-owners possessed of about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who rank as gentlemen of the intermediate category. In the britchka was seated such a gentleman—a man who, though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in the town, and was accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a couple of peasants who happened to be standing at the door of a dramshop exchanged a few comments with reference to the equipage rather than to the individual who was seated in it. "Look at that carriage," one of them said to the other. "Think you it will be going as far as Moscow?" "I think it will," replied his companion. "But not as far as Kazan, eh?" "No, not as far as Kazan." With that the conversation ended. Presently, as the britchka was approaching the inn, it was met by a young man in a pair of very short, very tight breeches of white dimity, a quasi-fashionable frockcoat, and a dickey fastened with a pistol-shaped bronze tie-pin. The young man turned his head as he passed the britchka and eyed it attentively; after which he clapped his hand to his cap (which was in danger of being removed by the wind) and resumed his way. On the vehicle reaching the inn door, its occupant found standing there to welcome him the polevoi, or waiter, of the establishment—an individual of such nimble and brisk movement that even to distinguish the character of his face was impossible. Running out with a napkin in one hand and his lanky form clad in a tailcoat, reaching almost to the nape of his neck, he tossed back his locks, and escorted the gentleman upstairs, along a wooden gallery, and so to the bedchamber which God had prepared for the gentleman's reception. The said bedchamber was of quite ordinary appearance, since the inn belonged to the species to be found in all provincial towns—the species wherein, for two roubles a day, travellers may obtain a room swarming with black-beetles, and communicating by a doorway with the apartment adjoining. True, the doorway may be blocked up with a wardrobe; yet behind it, in all probability, there will be standing a silent, motionless neighbour whose ears are burning to learn every possible detail concerning the latest arrival. The inn's exterior corresponded with its interior. Long, and consisting only of two storeys, the building had its lower half destitute of stucco; with the result that the dark-red bricks, originally more or less dingy, had grown yet dingier under the influence of atmospheric changes. As for the upper half of the building, it was, of course, painted the usual tint of unfading yellow. Within, on the ground floor, there stood a number of benches heaped with horse-collars, rope, and sheepskins; while the window-seat accommodated a sbitentshik[1], cheek by jowl with a samovar[2]—the latter so closely resembling the former in appearance that, but for the fact of the samovar possessing a pitch-black lip, the samovar and the sbitentshik might have been two of a pair.

The President is the King's father. He is an erect, strongly built, massive featured, white-haired, tawny old gentleman of eighty years of age or thereabouts. He was simply but well dressed, in a blue cloth coat and white vest, and white pantaloons, without spot, dust or blemish upon them. He bears himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of noble presence. He was a young man and a distinguished warrior under that terrific fighter, Kamehameha I., more than half a century ago. A knowledge of his career suggested some such thought as this: "This man, naked as the day he was born, and war-club and spear in hand, has charged at the head of a horde of savages against other hordes of savages more than a generation and a half ago, and reveled in slaughter and carnage; has worshipped wooden images on his devout knees; has seen hundreds of his race offered up in heathen temples as sacrifices to wooden idols, at a time when no missionary's foot had ever pressed this soil, and he had never heard of the white man's God; has believed his enemy could secretly pray him to death; has seen the day, in his childhood, when it was a crime punishable by death for a man to eat with his wife, or for a plebeian to let his shadow fall upon the King—and now look at him; an educated Christian; neatly and handsomely dressed; a high-minded, elegant gentleman; a traveler, in some degree, and one who has been the honored guest of royalty in Europe; a man practiced in holding the reins of an enlightened government, and well versed in the politics of his country and in general, practical information. Look at him, sitting there presiding over the deliberations of a legislative body, among whom are white men—a grave, dignified, statesmanlike personage, and as seemingly natural and fitted to the place as if he had been born in it and had never been out of it in his life time. How the experiences of this old man's eventful life shame the cheap inventions of romance!

He noticed Roger frowning at an inquiry from an older man. He hoped his son was being asked about the very distinguished gentleman who was laughing with Dagenham and Ferguson.

The dogma of the group is promoted as scientifically incontestable—in fact, truer than anything any human being has ever experienced. Resistance is not just immoral; it is illogical and unscientific. In order to support this notion, language is constricted by what Lifton calls the “thought-terminating cliché.” “The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed,” he writes. “These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.” For instance, the Chinese Communists dismissed the quest for individual expression and the exploration of alternative ideas as examples of “bourgeois mentality.” In Scientology, terms such as “Suppressive Person” and “Potential Trouble Source” play a similar role of declaring allegiance to the group and pushing discussion off the table. The Chinese Communists divided the world into the “people” (the peasantry, the petite bourgeoisie) and the “reactionaries” or “lackeys of imperialism” (landlords and capitalists), who were essentially non-people. In a similar manner, Hubbard distinguished between Scientologists and “wogs.” The word is a derogatory artifact of British imperialism, when it was used to describe dark-skinned peoples, especially South Asians. Hubbard appropriated the slur, which he said stood for “worthy Oriental gentleman.” To him, a wog represented “a common, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety humanoid”—an individual who is not present as a spirit. Those who are within the group are made to strive for a condition of perfection that is unattainable—the ideal Communist state, for instance, or the clearing of the planet by Scientology.

Yaroslav swung the white cape off his customer and snapped it in the air; he clicked his heels when accepting payment for a job well done; and as the gentleman exited the shop (looking younger and more distinguished than when he’d arrived), the barber approached the Count with a fresh cape.

The first thing in which I 'test the reins' of a person is whether he has in him a feeling for distance, whether he sees everywhere rank, degree, order between man and man, whether he distinguishes: one is thereby a gentleman.

I hope you agree with your distinguished mother, Major Rockingham, that divorce has gone quite far enough already. In our class, it certainly has. According to my information nine cases out of ten among people one knows are faked. There is a certain firm of Society solicitors— according to one of my informants— which actually employs, or at any rate recommends, professional co-respondents”. “Of which sex?” asked Geoffrey, his face serious but his foot touching Val’s under the table. “Females! In our class, unfortunately, the idea that it is the gentlemanly thing for a husband to allow his erring wife to obtain what she is pleased to call her freedom still persists.

Keating saw a distinguished, gray-haired gentleman escorting a lady to the door. The gentleman wore no hat and obviously belonged to the office; the lady wore a mink cape, and was obviously a client. The gentleman was not bowing to the ground, he was not unrolling a carpet, he was not waving a fan over her head; he was only holding the door for her. It merely seemed to Keating that the gentleman was doing all of that.

When Pestonjee died in November 1962 his son Minoo took over the management. And the business gradually wound up for good. Unlike Pestonjee, who had started his life with nothing, Minoo was born in the lap of luxury – the type who can turn into a spoiled brat. Pestonjee knew his son well and left the management of only the Patna dairy to him. The management of Anand dairy went to Pestonjee’s son-in-law, Lt Col. Kothawala. One day Minoo came to me and said: ‘If you want to ruin anything, ruin the Anand dairy. Don’t touch the Patna dairy because that one is mine.’ The statement revealed the kind of man he was. Periodically, Minoo would discuss the sale of the Anand dairy with me. One day he told me that he had spoken to the board and this time he was absolutely serious about selling the dairy. I spoke to our board members, who agreed that we should buy it, and a price was decided. Then Minoo backed out. He came a second time, again offering to sell. Once more I got the board’s approval to buy the dairy and again he backed out. When Minoo came to me for the third time wanting to sell the dairy, I ordered him to get out of my room. I told him that if he was serious he should bring his entire board to Anand to meet and talk with our board. He brought his entire board – a very distinguished board – and we discussed the sale and the deal was clinched at Rs 17 lakh. The next day, Minoo sold the same dairy to a Marwari gentleman for Rs 17 lakh and, some said, took another Rs 17 lakh under the table for himself. The board of directors of Polson were aghast and exceedingly embarrassed. They came to see me and apologised profusely, saying that they never expected he would do something like this. The legitimate amount of Rs 17 lakh went to Polson Ltd, while it is said that the under-the-table amount went into the Devakaran Nangi Trust which later went broke. By some mysterious divine justice, Minoo lost his entire Rs 17 lakh. This was the end of Pestonjee’s legendary Polson dairy. When Minoo sold the dairy to the Marwari gentleman (who bought it only for its real estate value), the first thing the Marwari did was to order the bust of Pestonjee, which graced the entrance, to be removed and thrown out. Variava called up Kothawala to inform him of this and he immediately telephoned me to say: ‘Dr Kurien, can you please save my father-in-law’s bust from being disgraced?’ I promised him that I would and it has since then been given pride of place in NDDB’s library, a reminder to all of the role that Pestonjee Edulji played in the history of Indian dairying.

It was too dark for them to see each other's faces, but the man's large form was silhouetted by the shimmer of moonlight. He was wearing evening clothes—he must be a guest at the ball. But he did not have the slender, elegant build of a gentleman with abundant leisure time. He had the tremendous, iron-hard muscles of a day laborer. His shoulders and chest were too deep, his thighs too developed. Aristocratic gentlemen did not usually possess such obvious muscles. They preferred to distinguish themselves from those who had to earn a living through physical labor. When he spoke, the gravelly undertone of his voice seemed to set off pleasurable vibrations along her spine. His accent lacked the clicking precision that a nobleman would have possessed. He was from the lower classes, she realized.

Never had any trouble distinguishing between a varmint and a gentleman. Where I come from, we get rid of the varmints.

Stanley must have realized that this postponement would probably be fatal. But while he did not give up, he never for a moment thought of abandoning his African quest [...] Yet Stanley still longed for the security of marriage, and hoped he could find Livingstone and marry Katie. [...] The romantic side of his nature told him that their story ought to end in marriage: the workhouse boy, having distinguished himself beyond all expectations, weds the daughter of the respectable local gentleman, and they live happily ever afterwards in a big house [...] But Katie had never understood his inner conviction of being chosen for a great task.

In the old days, when women were mostly illiterate, and their only “skill” with men was limited to blushing with the head down, courtesans could read, write, sing, dance, and play instruments—real and euphemistic ones—in and out of bed in a hundred different positions. Brothels were the only place a gentleman could find a worldly, elegant, irresistible, learned, challenging, understanding, interesting, and amorous woman. Many five-star courtesans became multimillionaires and eventually married distinguished suitors who immortalized their charm and beauty with poems.

Established in 1923, the OGPU replaced the Cheka as Russia’s central organ of the secret police. In 1934, the OGPU would be replaced by the NKVD, which in turn would be replaced by the MGB in 1943 and the KGB in 1954. On the surface, this may seem confusing. But the good news is that unlike political parties, artistic movements, or schools of fashion—which go through such sweeping reinventions—the methodologies and intentions of the secret police never change. So you should feel no need to distinguish one acronym from the next.]

Graham,” a distinguished gentleman, wearing a black suit and bow tie, calls out in a regal voice. I almost feel like curtseying

His dark hair is cropped short, making his dick seem longer and every bit as distinguished as he is. Who the fuck has a gentlemanly dick? Dane, that’s who.