Stiff upper lip
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One who has a stiff upper lip displays fortitude in the face of adversity, or exercises self-restraint in the expression of emotion.
The phrase is most commonly heard as part of the idiom keep a stiff upper lip, and has traditionally been used to describe a supposed attribute of British people, who were (and sometimes still are) perceived by many as being reserved; the idiom is however of American origin. Furthermore, most Welsh and Scottish people would see it as an essentially English trait unrelated to their national characteristics. The earliest known example is in a publication called the Massachusetts Spy for 14 June 1815; "I kept a stiff upper lip, and bought [a] license to sell my goods." [1]
English author P. G. Wodehouse's comic novel Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, 1963, (ISBN 0-7432-0360-7), parodies this trait, and the Eric Idle song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," is often seen as a humorous but genuine celebration of it.
