A Quote by Confucius

A gentleman considers what is right; the vulgar consider what will pay.

Confucius

Quote Topics

Consider Considers Gentleman Pay Right Vulgar Will

Quote Author

Confucius
Chinese - Philosopher
551 BC - 479 BC

Now in regard to trades and other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile "gentle" because courageous.

John Ruskin

A gentleman considers justice to be essential in everything. He practices it according to the principles of propriety. He brings it forth in modesty and faithfully completes it. This is indeed a gentleman.

Confucius

Irony is to the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms he can invent.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman: a gentleman, in the vulgar superficial way of understanding the word, is the Devil's Christian.

Augustus Hare

If the gentleman is not serious, he will not be respected, and his learning will not be on a firm foundation. He considers loyalty and faithfulness to be fundamental, has no friends who are not like him, and when he has made mistakes, he is not afraid of correcting them.

Confucius

A gentleman is calm and spacious: the vulgar are always fretting.

Confucius

A Gentleman is a man who will pay his gambling debts even when he knows he has been cheated.

Leo Tolstoy

The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls.

John Lancaster Spalding

He took in the squeaky music, the vulgar and pining melodies, because passion immobilizes good taste and seriously considers what soberly would be thought of as funny and to be resented.

Thomas Mann

Rather be frumpy than vulgar! Much. Frumps are often celebrities in disguise -- but a person of vulgar appearance is vulgar all through.

Emily Post

Capitalism doesn't consider morality. It considers profitability.

Steve Almond

The child should be taught to consider his instructor...superior to the parent in point of authority.... The vulgar impression that parents have a legal right to dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous.... Parents have no remedy as against the teacher.