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?—­Thackeray.

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.—­Shaftesbury.

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

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.  —­Coleridge.

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

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.—­Hazlitt.

He is gentle that doth gentle deeds.

Gentleman is a term which does not apply to any station, but to the mind and the feelings in every station.—­TALFOURD.

Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth, came Habraham, Moyses, Aron and the profettys; and also the kyng of the right line of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne.—­Juliana BERNERS.

Gentleness.—­True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to Him who made us, and to the common nature which we all share.  It arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just views of the condition and the duty of man.  It is native feeling heightened and improved by principle.—­Blair.

We do not believe, or we forget, that “the Holy Ghost came down, not in shape of a vulture, but in the form of a dove.”—­Emerson.

Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress.  Violent gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.—­Balzac.

The best and simplest cosmetic for women is constant gentleness and sympathy for the noblest interests of her fellow-creatures.  This preserves and gives to her features an indelibly gay, fresh, and agreeable expression.  If women would but realize that harshness makes them ugly, it would prove the best means of conversion.—­Auerbach.

Gentleness, which belongs to virtue, is to be carefully distinguished from the mean spirit of cowards and the fawning assent of sycophants.  —­Blair.