Etiquette is about all of human social behavior. Behavior is regulated by law when etiquette breaks down or when the stakes are high - violations of life, limb, property and so on. Barring that, etiquette is a little social contract we make that we will restrain some of our more provocative impulses in return for living more or less harmoniously in a community.

It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.

One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.

A wedding invitation is sent by people who have been saying, "Do we have to ask them?" to people whose first response is, "How much do you think we have to spend on them?

We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility.

Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without a comment is a wonderful social grace ... Children who have the habit of constantly correcting should be stopped before they grow up to drive spouses and everyone else crazy by interrupting stories to say, 'No, dear -- it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.

Why bring children into a world where no one writes letters?