“The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne.
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayd,
As by his manners.”

— Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

Canto 3, stanza 1; Spenser here is referencing and paraphrasing a statement from the "Wife of Bath's Tale" of Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer: "he is gentil that doth gentil dedis."
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VI

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Edmund Spenser53

English poet 1552–1599

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