Quotes About Manners

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.

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.

Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people's bad manners.

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

In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known.

I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.

Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.

There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

Some people are all quality; you would think they are made up of nothing but title and genealogy. The stamp of dignity defaces in them the very character of humanity and transports them to such a degree of haughtiness that they reckon it below themselves to exercise either good nature or good manners.

In professions where the criteria of professionalism, expertise, good manners and ethics apply, the gender aspect, i.e., whether a person is a man or woman, is not relevant at all. What is important is that citizens' confidence in politicians and the politics is strong enough to make politicians proud of their profession.

Vulgarity of manners defiles fine garments more than mud.

Political correctness is tyranny with manners.

Good manners can render even virtue tolerable.

You can't be truly rude until you understand good manners.

I think dating courtesies are common courtesies that should be practiced in most all civilized encounters. I pine for the days of good, old-fashioned manners.

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.

Ah, the truth, what a thing it is! I sacrifice so much for it, with people: I forego, for truth's sake, discretion, loyalty, diplomacy, tact, polite manners, elegance, grace, poise, balance, good taste, conformity, image-role, fashionableness, polish, confidences, promises, ambition, consistency, identity, clarity, comprehensibleness, good will, hypocrisy, and lots of other things--amass sacrifice, at truth's altar. God! is truth worth it? I hope it is. It better be, in fact.

I had TB as a child. So I was put to doing things like drawing and reading. And I was raised in a family where manners were important. Maybe that's why I seem so refined.

Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

Bedside manners are no substitute for the right diagnosis.

He only shot one person," Nick remarked. "But the night is young." . . . Forgive him, he has no manners." I get by on good looks," Nick said.

Her air, her manners, all who saw admir'd; Courteous though coy, and gentle though retir'd; The joy of youth and health her eyes display'd, And ease of heart her every look convey'd.

Civility is not simply about manners.

Let a man use great reverence and manners to himself.

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

There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we doubt whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all.

When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart.

Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman.

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

Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world.

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

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

In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.

Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.

A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the people, and inspires them with a conscious dignity becoming freemen; a general emulation takes place, which causes good humor, sociability, good manners, and good morals to be general. That elevation of sentiment inspired by such a government, makes the common people brave and enterprising. That ambition which is inspired by it makes them sober, industrious, and frugal.

The difference of language, dress, and manners . . . severs and alienates the nations of the globe.

Manners carry the world for the moment, character for all time.

My heart rushes into the garden, joyfully tasting all the delights. But reason frowns, disapproving of the heart's bad manners.

The Indian gods are imposing, the Greek gods are not. Indeed they are not brave, not self-controlled, they have no manners, they are not gentlemen and ladies.

Whosoever will list himself under the banner of Christ, must, in the first place and above all things, make war upon his own lusts and vices. It is in vain for any man to usurp the name of Christian, without holiness of life, purity of manners, benignity and meekness of spirit.

I am a stickler for good manners, and I believe that treating other people well is a lost art. In the workplace, at the dinner table, and walking down the street--we are confronted with choices on how to treat people nearly every waking moment. Over time these choices define who we are and whether we have a lot of friends and allies or none.

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.

The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia.

Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.

Ceremony is necessary in Courts, as the outwork and defense of manners.

To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.