“A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.”
“An Irish gentleman is someone who can play the bagpipes but won’t.”
First ascribed to Wilde by The Boston Globe in 1991. The joke probably appeared for the first time in 1917, when The Atchison Weekly Globe attributed it to a local man named Frank Fiest.
Misattributed
Source: My Idea of a Gentleman Is He Who Can Play a Cornet and Won’t, Quote Investigator, 14 August 2021 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/04/21/cornet/,
“An old definition of a gentleman: someone who is never rude except on purpose.”
2000s, 2001, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)
February 04, 2013
WWE Raw
“A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.”
Source: Norwegian Wood
