Any child can be taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are acquired is a Herculean task.

Excepting a religious ceremonial, there is no occasion where greater dignity of manner is required of ladies and gentlemen both, than in occupying a box at the opera. For a gentleman especially no other etiquette is so exacting.

A lady never asks a gentleman to dance, or to go to supper with her.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life.... Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.

A little praise is not only merest justice but is beyond the purse of no one.

No rule of etiquette is of less importance than which fork we use.

Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note imaginable is better than none.