Popular quotes about Manners! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Working- and Middle-class families sat down at the dinner table every night - the shared meal was the touchstone of good manners. Indeed, that dinner table was the one time when we were all together, every day: parents, grandparents, children, siblings. Rudeness between siblings, or a failure to observe the etiquette of passing dishes to one another, accompanied by "please" and "thank you," was the training ground of behavior, the place where manners began.
Larry McMurtryA dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.
Robert A. HeinleinThe challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.
Judith MartinThe '90s were a time when not just the movie business, but every aspect of American life, became a lot more corporate. There's a line in Jonathan Franzen's essay "Perchance to Dream" about how "the rich lateral dramas of local manners have been replaced by a single vertical drama, that of commercial generality." I wanted to examine that great homogenizing force that came in during the '90s, since Hollywood seemed a place where it was particularly active.
Matthew SpecktorI don't like people being rude. Bad manners and arrogance make me cross. People making others feel uncomfortable. And I really don't like it in restaurants when people are rude or patronising to waiters. I feel like saying, 'They're not your slave'. But my knees only shake around once every five years. You're safe, don't worry.
Alan TitchmarshYou call that evening the odds? You demolished them." Demolished. He liked that. "I left you one." "I noticed." "I promised to share," he told her. "Manners are very important in the Weird. Lying would be quite impolite.
Ilona AndrewsThe ministers of Christ should possess refinement. All uncouth manners, attitudes and gestures should be discarded, and they should encourage in themselves humble dignity of bearing.
Ellen G. WhiteThe company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding; and that complaisance and politeness, which are so useful in men's company, can only be acquired in women's.
Lord ChesterfieldCustom governs the world; it is the tyrant of our feelings and our manners and rules the world with the hand of a despot.
Bill VaughanI was brought up in a way that when you're at a dinner party, you don't grab a chip unless it's been offered to everyone else. It's the manners of being brought up by English parents.
Hugh JackmanNo girl who is well bred, 'kind, and modest, is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want of manners, or of heart.
John RuskinI think that one not only has to make demands on the established group, but one also has to make demands on the outsider group. One has to make clear: if you want to leave, please do so. But if you want to stay here, a degree of accommodation to the Dutch outlook, Dutch manners, and a degree of identification with the Netherlands will be expected of you. There is no reason why there cannot be Dutch Turks or Dutch Moroccans. But one can expect from them a degree of identification, some change of their own social identity.
Norbert EliasMy manners also came from when I was in college and began participating in critiques. You have to speak with someone respectfully about their work and be honest and open, without hurting them.
Tim GunnJudging othersโ intentions is the right of God alone. We donโt have this right, and it is poor manners with God.
Habib Ali al-JifriAtheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property.
Jeremy CollierAs soon as a woman begins to dress "loud," her manners and conversation partake of the same element.
Thomas Chandler HaliburtonBad art was as good as good art. Grammar and spelling were no longer important. To be clean was no better than to be filthy. Good manners were no better than bad. Family life was derided as an outdated bourgeois concept. Criminals deserved as much sympathy as their victims. Many homes and classrooms became disorderly - if there was neither right nor wrong there could be no basis for punishment or reward. Violence and soft pornography became accepted in the media. Thus was sown the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind.
Norman TebbitThere ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Edmund BurkeIt seems to me that the spirit of politeness is a certain attention in causing that, by our words and by our manners, others may be content with us and with themselves.
Jean de la BruyereJustice is a moral virtue, merely because it has that tendency to the good of mankind, and indeed is nothing but an artificial invention to that purpose. The same may be said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good manners. All these are mere human contrivances for the interest of society.
David HumeWhen the Prince of Wales [later King George IV] and the Duke of York went to visit their brother Prince William [later William IV]at Plymouth, and all three being very loose in their manners, and coarse in their language, Prince William said to his ship's crew, "now I hope you see that I am not the greatest blackguard of my family.
Horace WalpoleThe larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'.
P. J. O'RourkeMaybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.
John Shelton ReedThe American war is over; but this far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government, and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.
Benjamin RushGood manners - the longer I live the more convinced I am of it - are a priceless insurance against failure and loneliness. And anyone can have them.
Elsa MaxwellI heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind andyour manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends.
Lord ChesterfieldManners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage.
Ralph Waldo EmersonMen and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.
Mary WollstonecraftAcceptable rules of conduct were suspended when it came to the spoon shortage. The deficit had gotten so bad that prices were all but unaffordable, and dynastic spoon succession had become a matter of considerable interest. Spoons were even postcode engraved and carried on one's person to eliminate theft, and good table manners, one of the eight pillars upon which the Collective was built, had been relaxed to allow tea to be stirred - shockingly - with the handle of a fork.
Jasper FfordeBarbarism? That's ironic coming from a woman helping to prepare us for slaughter. And what's she basing our success on? Our table manners?
Suzanne CollinsAll good conversation, manners, and action come from a spontaneity which forgets usages and makes the moment great.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe decline of manners, the cynical pursuit without shame or restraint of personal advantage and of money characterizes our times, not without exceptions, of course, but more than we ought to be comfortable with.
J. Irwin MillerIn dress, habits, manners, provincialism, routine and narrowness, he acquired that charming insolence, that irritating completeness, that sophisticated crassness, that overbalanced poise that makes the Manhattan gentleman so delightfully small in its greatness.
O. HenrySnobs look down on people, and I look down on everyone. Not in a snooty, classist way - I mean because I'm better than everyone. I don't give a s**t about good manners.
Murdoc NiccalsThe sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.
Samuel AdamsThe beginning of civilisation is the discovery of some useful arts, by which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries. The necessity or desire of preserving them leads to laws and social institutions. The discovery of peculiar arts gives superiority to particular nations ... to subjugate other nations, who learn their arts, and ultimately adopt their manners;- so that in reality the origin as well as the progress and improvement of civil society is founded in mechanical and chemical inventions.
Humphry DavyWe ought always to conform to the manners of the greater number, and so behave as not to draw attention to ourselves. Excess either way shocks, and every man truly wise ought to attend to this in his dress as well as language, never to be affected in anything and follow without being in too great haste the changes of fashion.
MoliereOne wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.
Anthony Trollope