“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid”
Variant: The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid
Source: "Northanger Abbey" (1817)
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Jane Austen 477
English novelist 1775–1817Related quotes
“A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.”
"The Part-Time Lady," http://books.google.com/books?id=0qhKAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+lady+is+a+woman+who+makes+a+man+behave+like+a+gentleman%22&pg=PA104#v=onepage A Surfeit of Honey (1957)
Interview with the Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.
In a Parliamentary debate with the Conservative MP, John Pakington (May 31, 1866). Hansard, vol 183, col 1592. Pakington was referring to Footnote 3 to Chapter 7 of Mill's "Considerations on Representative Government".
Misquoted as "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." in "Life of John Stuart Mill" (1889) by W. L. Courtney, p. 147.
This seems to have become paraphrased as "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." which was a variant published in Quotations for Our Time (1978), edited by Laurence J. Peter.
“During the Calciopoli scandal: "A true gentleman never leaves his lady."”
http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2005/settembre/01/sfida_piu_difficile_Alex_Del_co_8_050901011.shtml
Attributed
“Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.”
“A person who wills to have a good will, already has a good will”
Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XIV : The Need of an Absolute, p. 197.
Context: A person who wills to have a good will, already has a good will--in its rudiments. There is solid satisfaction in knowing that the mere desire to get out of an old habit is a material advance upon the condition of submergence in that habit. The longest step toward cleanliness is made when one gains--nothing but dissatisfaction with dirt.
“The ancient gentleman who has seen the world, who is profoundly experienced”
"That Old Birds are not to be Caught with Chaff".
Sketches from Life (1846)
Context: The ancient gentleman who has seen the world, who is profoundly experienced, and much too deep to be the dupe of an age so shallow as this, is to be won by an admiring glance at the brilliancy of his knee-buckle; praise his very pigtail, and you may lead him by it.