Quotes About Manners

This is another thing which I really like investigating in my novels: what is it that makes an intimate society, that makes a society in which moral concern for others will be possible? Part of that I think are manners and ritual. We tried to get rid of manners, we tried to abolish manners in the '60s. Manners were very, very old-fashioned and un-cool. And of course we didn't realise that manners are the building blocks of proper moral relationships between people.

Morals refine manners, as manners refine morals.

Good manners open the closed doors; bad manners close the open doors!

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

Manners will become important to children only if they are important to their parents.

It is a grand old name, that of gentleman, and has been recognized as a rank and power in all stages of society. To possess this character is a dignity of itself, commanding the instinctive homage of every generous mind, and those who will not bow to titular rank will yet do homage to the gentleman. His qualities depend not upon fashion or manners, but upon moral worth; not on personal possessions, but on personal qualities.

A great reserve and severity of manners are necessary for the command of those who are older than ourselves.

If Julian had flattered himself that his personal connexion with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians.

The 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.

Bonnie and Clyde became not just a big hit, but a movie that went through young audiences like a first slug of Scotch. It affected clothes, talk, manners. Though set in the thirties it had the feeling of 1966, the most dangerous moment in American young people remembered.

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and they distributed it every year according to a new division. At the same time, they were not authorised to punish with death, to imprison, or even to strike, a private citizen.

The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination. Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female frailty. From such dangers the unpolished wives of the barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a domestic life.

What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ear have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

Science comforting man's animal poverty and leisuring his toil, hath humanized manners and social temper, and now above her globe-spredd net of speeded intercourse hath outrun all magic, and disclosing the secrecy of the reticent air hath woven a web of invisible strands spiriting the dumb inane with the quick matter of life.

The talent of a meat packer, the morals of a money changer, and the manners of an undertaker.

In comparing these two writers, he [Samuel Johnson] used this expression: "that there was as great a difference between them as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate." This was a short and a figurative statement of his distinction between drawing characters of nature and characters only of manners, but I cannot help being of opinion, that the neat watches of Fielding are as well constructed as the large clocks of Richardson, and that his dial plates are brighter.

To reject wisdom because the person communicates it is uncouth and his manners are inelegant, what is it but to throw away a pine-apple, and assign for a reason the roughness of its coat?

The different political systems, religions and social habits demonstrate that the same brain can be tuned in different manners. But the tuning capacity is limited. We can never feel as a jaguar, for example. We can imagine a man who believes or who intends to be a jaguar, but to intend is not the same as to be. We can have other ideologies, but we will continue restricted by the nature of our brain and of our body.

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.

Good manners make any man a pleasure to be with. Ask any woman.

To be thoroughly imbued, with the liberal arts refines the manners, and makes men to be mild and gentle in their conduct.

Private problems don't constitute an excuse for bad manners.

Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.

Money doesn't mean that you are educated, have manners, class or even have good hygiene. All it means is . . . you have money!

[Magnus] reminded himself of his manners, and bowed. "Charmed," he said. "Or whatever effect would please you best, I'm sure.

Grace is in garments, in movements, in manners; beauty in the nude, and in forms. This is true of bodies; but when we speak of feelings, beauty is in their spirituality, and grace in their moderation.

Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners.

Those partial to drink were hiding faults and dishonesty. They were sloppy souls, even the ones with pleasant manners and fine noses.

Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.

Words can be worrisome, poeple complex, motives and manners unclear, grant her the wisdom to choose her path right, free from unkindness and fear.

I believe the Bible to be the written Word of God and to contain in it the whole rule of faith and manners.

A gentleman, is a rarer thing than some of us think for. Which of us can point out many such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is constant and elevated; who can look the world honestly in the face, with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are well made, and a score who have excellent manners; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a little scrap of paper, and each make out his list.

Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Good manners come, as we say, from good breeding or rather are good breeding; and breeding is acquired by habitual action, in response to habitual stimuli, not by conveying information.

Dressing well is a kind of good manners, if you ask me. When you're standing in a room, your effect is the same as a chair's effect, or a sculpture's. You're part of someone's view, you're part of that world, and so you should dress well. I find it's a show of respect to try to put on your best face and look as good as you can.

I have always thought you could take the measure of a man by his sports manners - that is to say, the way in which he conducts himself on the playing field, or even over a game of chess or cards.

The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

The expressive word "quiet" defines the dress, manners, bow, and even physiognomy of every true denizen of St. James and Bond street.

Good manners reflect something from inside-an innate sense of consideration for others and respect for self.

We often value the exterior and superficial aspect of things more than their inner reality. Bad manners taint everything even justice and reason. The 'how' of things matters most, and even the most disagreeable matters can be sweetened and gilded over with the proper appearance. Such is the bias and the weakness of the human mind.

The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight.

I'm a child of the 50s. I was expected to have table manners. There needs to be some expectations for behavior. I'm seeing some children today, they don't push them enough.

We 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.

Manners make often fortunes.

The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity when contrasted with a finer intelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days,--mere courtliness, knee-buckles and small- clothes, out of date.