“This is the final test of a gentleman: His respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.”

Last update June 12, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This is the final test of a gentleman: His respect for those who can be of no possible service to him." by William Lyon Phelps?
William Lyon Phelps photo
William Lyon Phelps 3
American author, critic and scholar 1865–1943

Related quotes

Conrad Black photo

“Those who would retain his services should confine him to subjects better suited…to his sniggering, puerile, defamatory and cruelly limited talents.”

Conrad Black (1944) Canadian-born newspaper publisher

On Canadian author John Ralston Saul
"The world according to Conrad Black", 2007

James Hudson Taylor photo

“But God makes no mistakes; according to their service He divides the help, and those who are called to the holiest service are those who can have least assistance.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(J. Hudson Taylor. Separation and Service: Or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. London: Morgan & Scott, n.d., 105).

C.G. Jung photo

“Management cannot provide a man with self-respect or with the respect of his fellows or with the satisfaction of needs for self-fulfillment. It can create conditions such that he is encouraged and enabled to seek such satisfactions for himself, or it can thwart him by failing to create those conditions.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

Douglas McGregor (1957), "The Human Side of Enterprise," in: Adventure in Thought and Action, Proceedings of the Fifth Anniversary Convocation of the School of Industrial Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, April 9, 1957. Cambridge, MA: MIT School of Industrial Management.

Milan Kundera photo

“Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect humankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), as quoted in Milan Kundera (2003) by Harold Bloom, [//books.google.it/books?id=SXDojRJFMPIC&pg=PA91 p. 91]
Context: True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

James Patterson photo

“Max, if you survive your final test, can you steal me one of those magic outfits for me?"
I'll try to get one for each of us. Hey! 'If'?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Robert Burns photo

“His lockèd, lettered, braw brass collar
Showed him the gentleman an' scholar.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

The Twa Dogs, st. 3 (1786)

Frederick Douglass photo

“Jefferson was not ashamed to call the black man his brother and to address him as a gentleman.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1870s, Self-Made Men (1872)

David Lloyd George photo

“The Landlord is a gentleman … who does not earn his wealth.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Limehouse, East London (30 July 1909), quoted in Better Times: Speeches by the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), pp. 150-151.
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Context: Who is the landlord? The Landlord is a gentleman … who does not earn his wealth. He does not even take the trouble to receive his wealth. He has a host of agents and clerks that receive it for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending for him. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride is stately consumption of wealth produced by others.

P.G. Wodehouse photo

Related topics