Popular quotes about Manners! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 3
Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners.
John McGahernThere are two qualities that make fiction. One is the sense of mystery and the other is the sense of manners. You get the manners from the texture of existence that surrounds you. The great advantage of being a Southern writer is that we don't have to go anywhere to look for manners; bad or good, we've got them in abundance. We in the South live in a society that is rich in contradiction, rich in irony, rich in contrast, and particularly rich in its speech
Flannery O'ConnorEDUCATION, n. The bringing up, as of a child; instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.
Noah WebsterIt's interesting to observe that almost all truly worthy men have simple manners, and that simple manners are almost always taken as a sign of little worth
Giacomo LeopardiFor as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.
Niccolo MachiavelliTo be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good; the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself.
Richard WhatelyI believe that there's a way to question authority with manners, with dignity. There's no reason to be rude about it.
Nicolas CageIf an armed nation were a polite nation, America would be paradise. We have more than 200 million guns in private owernship here. But our manners are not getting better.
Molly IvinsI would advise him who wishes to imitate well, to look closely into life and manners, and thereby to learn to express them with truth.
HoraceSome people really need to be taught some manners," he said disdainfully. I stared up at him. "Would you really have gotten in a fight for me?" "Of course." He didn't hesitate. "But there were four of them." "Beth, I'd take on Megatron's army to protect you." "Who?
Alexandra AdornettoClothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance.
Henry Ward Beecher...I had grown up in a world that was dominated by immature age. Not by vigorous immaturity, but by immaturity that was old and tired and prudent, that loved ritual and rubric, and was utterly wanting in curiosity about the new and the strange. Its era has passed away, and the world it made has crumbled around us. Its finest creation, a code of manners, has been ridiculed and discarded.
Ellen GlasgowThe simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners; but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader.
Edward GibbonAlthough there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is "faithful in that which is least" is dependable in all the world.
Maltbie Davenport BabcockTo make a pleasant and friendly impression is not alone good manners, but equally good business.
Emily PostThere are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you โ of kindness and consideration and respect โ not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didnโt know you had.
John SteinbeckOctoberโ You were sleeping so peacefully that I was loath to wake you. Duke Torquill, after demanding to know what I was doing in your apartment, has requested that I inform you of his intent to visit after โtending to some business at the Queenโs Court.โ I recommend wearing something clinging, as that may distract him from whatever he wishes to lecture you about this time. Hopefully, itโs your manners. You are truly endearing when you sleep. I attribute this to the exotic nature of seeing you in a state of silence. โTybalt
Mira GrantWriters of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, or are likely to be.
Mary Wortley MontaguIt strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially - like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.
David OgilvyTime indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible.
Thomas JeffersonGood manners can replace morals. It may be years before anyone knows if what you are doing is right. But if what you are doing is nice, it will be immediately evident.
P. J. O'RourkeI told them he'd be able to get you to go out." Rianne folded her winnings and tucked the bills into her blazer pocket. "Look at him." "He's right here, Ri," Carla murmured, shooting Keenan an apologetic look. "We've tried to teach her manners, but..." She shrugged. "It's like housebreaking a dog. If we'd had her when she was a puppy, maybe." Rianne smacked her on the arm, but she was grinning. "Woof, woof.
Melissa MarrIt 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 BruyereThe 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 home was a school. Farm and cabin households, though bookless save for the Family Bible and The Sacred Harp, taught the girls to spin, weave, quilt, cook, sew, and mind their manners; the boys to wield gun, ax, hammer and saw, to ride, plow, sow and reap, and to be men. Nobody need ever be bored. Amusement did not have to be bought.
Richard M. WeaverSince the discovery of oxygen the civilised world has undergone a revolution in manners and customs. The knowledge of the composition of the atmosphere, of the solid crust of the earth, of water, and of their influence upon the life of plants and animals, was linked to that discovery. The successful pursuit of innumerable trades and manufactures, the profitable separation of metals from their ores, also stand in the closest connection therewith.
Justus von LiebigOpinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
Lord ActonIn England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved.
Russell BrandMy heart rushes into the garden, joyfully tasting all the delights. But reason frowns, disapproving of the heart's bad manners.
RumiWhat a rare gift, by the by, is that of manners! how difficult to define, how much more difficult to impart! Better for a man to possess them than wealth, beauty, or talent; they will more than supply all.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonThe most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.
Thomas MoreThe automobile, practical since 1906, was proceeding to disintegrate and stamp anew the pattern of communication, manners, and city life in the United States, by 1918; before long, men would begin to see that the automobile, and the mass production techniques which made its possible, could alter the national character and morality more thoroughly than could the most absolute of tyrants. As a mechanical Jacobin, it rivaled the dynamo. The productive process which made these vehicles cheap was still more subversive of the old ways than was the gasoline engine itself.
Russell KirkTelling a lie is called wrong. Telling the truth is called right. Except when telling the truth is called bad manners and telling a lie is called polite.
Judith ViorstMiss Manners does not mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but she feels that anyone without the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in their face should probably not be running around loose on the streets.
Judith MartinGenial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance, but the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happiness, -- whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statutes, or songs. I doubt not this was the meaning of Socrates, when he pronounced artists the only truly wise, as being actually, not apparently so.
Ralph Waldo EmersonManners are the ability to put someone else at their ease...by turning any answer into another question.
Tina BrownThe 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 DavyAs 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.
Thomas JeffersonTheir virtues lived in their children. The family changed its persons but not its manners, and they continued a blessing to the world from generation to generation.
Sarah FieldingOne 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