Gentility Quotes

“Politeness is the first thing people lose once they get the power.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite ... Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families ... and you have no idea ... what games goes on!”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“There we were, filled with pure animal need, as he pinned me to the wooden table, and cruelly whipped my naked bottom; the two of us sweaty and panting, me screaming, him grunting, our primal sexual natures overprinting the tea room’s pretence at gentility, and refinement.”
― Fiona Thrust, Naked and Sexual

“May I offer some refreshment?" Miss Pink asked, mincingly. "A cup of tea?"
Lady Lydiard shook her head.
"A glass of water?"
Lady Lydiard declined the last hospitable proposal with an exclamation of disgust. "Have you got any beer?" she inquired.
"I beg your Ladyship's pardon," said Miss Pink, doubting the evidence of her own ears. "Did you say - beer?"
Lady Lydiard gesticulated vehemently with her fan. "Yes, to be sure! Beer! beer!"
Miss Pink rose, with a countenance expressive of genteel disgust, and rang the bell. "I think you have beer downstairs, Susan?" she said, when the maid appeared at the door.
"Yes, Miss."
"A glass of beer for Lady Lydiard," said Miss Pink, under protest.
"Bring it in a jug," shouted her Ladyship, as the maid left the room.”
― Wilkie Collins, My Lady's Money

“It often horrified the English community that she spent her time with local farmers and horse traders, eccentrics and mystics, but she valued expertise over convention and had long believed if you were going to make discoveries in the world you must first quit your Englishness and open your eyes.”
― Sara Sheridan, On Starlit Seas

“Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, “All men are equal — all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas,” and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of Democracy are inaudible.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Shirts. I thought all the time they were khaki, army issue khaki, until I saw they were of heavy Chinese silk or finest flannel because they made his face so brown his eyes so blue. Dalton Ames. It just missed gentility. Theatrical fixture. Just papier-mache, then touch. Oh. Asbestos. Not quite bronze.”
― William Faulkner

“every one knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly.”
― Herman Melville

“Death is not scary enough and not so sweet life of the human foot leaves gentility.”
― Imam Ali (AS)

“Nooadays the genteelest and the best leevin' folk gang to theatres and music-halls if somebody gi'es them a ticket for naething.”
― Neil Munro, Erchie, My Droll Friend