“To be rude to him was courtesy.”
Canto XXXIII, line 150 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno
Original
Cortesia fu lui esser villano.
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Dante Alighieri 105
Italian poet 1265–1321Related quotes

Source: Queer: A Novel (1985), Chapter One

Oh! when I think that all the area in boundless space he had seen was limited to a circle of some fifty miles' diameter (he never in his life was farther or elsewhere so far from home as at Craigenputtoch), and all his knowledge of the boundless time was derived from his Bible and what the oral memories of old men could give him, and his own could gather; and yet, that he was such, I could take shame to myself. I feel to my father — so great though so neglected, so generous also towards me — a strange tenderness, and mingled pity and reverence peculiar to the case, infinitely soft and near my heart. Was he not a sacrifice to me? Had I stood in his place, could he not have stood in mine, and more? Thou good father! well may I forever honor thy memory. Surely that act was not without its reward. And was not nature great, out of such materials to make such a man?
1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

“Oh, he's rude to everyone," said Isabelle airily. "It's what makes him so damn sexy.”
Source: City of Bones

“A man can suffocate on courtesy.”

“Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.”