Quotes About Manners

When people complain of the decay of manners they have in mind not the impudent abbreviations of the crowd, but the decline in bowing and scraping and in speaking of one's employer as "the master." What the rich mean by the good manners of the poor is usually not civility, but servility.

To 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.

~I'm strict about manners. I think that kids have a horrible time with other people if they have bad manners.... The one thing you've got to be prepared to do as a parent is not to be liked from time to time.~

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.

Vampire politics make the very complicated dance of manners that is werewolf protocol look like the Hokey Pokey.

I believe that there's a way to question authority with manners, with dignity. There's no reason to be rude about it.

The '90s were a time when not just the movie business, but every aspect of American life, became a lot more corporate. There's a line in Jonathan Franzen's essay "Perchance to Dream" about how "the rich lateral dramas of local manners have been replaced by a single vertical drama, that of commercial generality." I wanted to examine that great homogenizing force that came in during the '90s, since Hollywood seemed a place where it was particularly active.

If 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.

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.

Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are.

The Gauls derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell.

I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts?

Republics demanded virtue. Monarchies could rely on coercion and "dazzling splendor" to suppress self-interest or factions; republics relied on the goodness of the people to put aside private interest for public good. The imperatives of virtue attached all sorts of desiderata to the republican citizen: simplicity, frugality, sobriety, simple manners, Christian benevolence, duty to the polity. Republics called on other virtues--spiritedness, courage--to protect the polity from external threats. Tyrants kept standing armies; republics relied on free yeomen, defending their own land.

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.

It indicates a person who has not only good manners but who possesses a sense of balance, a sure mastery of himself, a moral discipline that permits him to subordinate voluntarily his own selfish interest to the wider interests of the society in which he lives. The gentleman, therefore is a cultural person in the noblest sense of the word, if by culture we mean not simply wealth of intellectual knowledge but also the ability to fulfil one's duty and understand one's fellow man by respecting / every principle, every opinion, every faith that is sincerely professed.

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.

Despite the never ending play of conscious correction and instruction, the surrounding atmosphere and spirit is in the end the chief agent in forming manners.

The most essential elements of success in life are a purpose, increasing industry, temperate habits, scrupulous regard for ones word ... courteous manners, a generous regard for the rights of others, and, above all, integrity which admits of no qualification or variation.

Most old people ... are disheartened to be living in the ailing house of their bodies, to be limited physically and economically, to feel an encumbrance to others - guests who didn't have the good manners to leave when the party was over.

I think the biggest reason I was able to express myself and not be intimidated was by not having a mother. For example, mothers teach you manners. And I absolutely did not learn any of those rules and regulations.

Manners are just a formal expression of how you treat people.

Young people nowadays love luxury; they have bad manners and contempt for authority. They show disrespect for old people... contradict their parents, talk constantly in front of company, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers.

Arles is certainly one of the most interesting towns I have ever seen, whether viewed as a place remarkable for the objects of antiquity it contains, or for the primitive manners of its inhabitants and its picturesque appearance.

Manners, really good ones, make it possible to live with almost anyone, gracefully and pleasantly.

I spent thirty years learning manners, and I spent twenty years learning knowledge.

Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

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

Bad art was as good as good art. Grammar and spelling were no longer important. To be clean was no better than to be filthy. Good manners were no better than bad. Family life was derided as an outdated bourgeois concept. Criminals deserved as much sympathy as their victims. Many homes and classrooms became disorderly - if there was neither right nor wrong there could be no basis for punishment or reward. Violence and soft pornography became accepted in the media. Thus was sown the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind.

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.

It is said that when manners are licentious, a revolution is always near: the virtue of woman being the main girth and bandage ofsociety; because a man will not lay up an estate for children any longer than whilst he believes them to be his own.

In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.

The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one's peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.

We all originally came from the woods! it is hard to eradicate from any of us the old taste for the tattoo and the war-paint; and the moment that money gets into our pockets, it somehow or another breaks out in ornaments on our person, without always giving refinement to our manners.

The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated.

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 machine technology takes no cognizance of conventionally established rules of precedence; it knows neither manners nor breeding and can make no use of any of the attributes of worth.

[Yankees] are pretty much like southerners except with worse manners, of course, and terrible accents.

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.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.

Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.

Promptitude is not only a duty, but is also a part of good manners; it is favorable to fortune, reputation, influence, and usefulness; a little attention and energy will form the habit, so as to make it easy and delightful.

What? Was he raised in a barn? Didn’t he ever learn how to close a door? Amateur shape-shifters…No manners whatsoever.” – Sasha “Do we need to get you a Midol before we go?” – Sundown “I’m not that easy to soothe, cowboy. My peeves are on a cellular level.” – Sasha

Most women find a man with good manners sexy.

In England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved.

What 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.

I'm gonna try to talk about this in a secular way, but where's the spirituality of just being a person? I think it contributes to this rise in bad manners and mean comments; people are being driven by seeking something that's just designed to keep them seeking something. I'm not reducing people in this age to phone-addicted dum-dums, but we have to remind ourselves to also study compassion and inner life as well.