How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"[…] You here in Europe need professionals to run your affairs. If you don't realize that soon you're headed for disaster. A toast, gentlemen. Let me make a toast. To professionalism." (3.348)
The American senator Mr. Lewis scoffs at his European counterparts, who are still working from an older, more traditional model where gentlemen made treaties based on gentlemanly understandings. The modern world, he argues, requires "professional" diplomats, not gentleman amateurs.
Quote #5
"[…] What you describe as "amateurism," sir, is what I think most of us here still prefer to call "honour" […]. I believe I have a good idea of what you mean by "professionalism." It appears to mean getting one's way by cheating and manipulating. It appears to mean serving the dictates of greed and advantage rather than those of goodness and the desire to see justice prevail in the world." (3.352)
Lord Darlington defends his so-called amateurism against the American senator's criticism by insisting on the moral superiority of values such as honor, goodness, and justice.
Quote #6
It would seem there is a whole dimension to the question "what is a "great" butler?" I have not hitherto not properly considered […]. It may well be true to say it is a prerequisite of greatness that one "be attached to a distinguished household"—so long as one takes "distinguished" here to have a meaning deeper than that understood by the Hayes Society. (4.1)
The Hayes Society was an exclusive club of self-described "great butlers." Their definition of "great" or "distinguished" was based on class: being born noble or aristocratic, or working for someone who was. Stevens proposes a different definition: being morally superior.