Popular quotes about Manners! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 60
It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
Mary WollstonecraftGENTLE READER: You, sir, are an anarchist, and Miss Manners is frightened to have anything to do with you. It is true that questioning the table manners of others is rude. But to overthrow the accepted conventions of society, on the flimsy grounds that you have found them silly, inefficient and discomforting, is a dangerous step toward destroying civilization.
Judith MartinA dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.
Robert A. HeinleinManners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue.... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles.
Immanuel KantLet not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously assert that women ought to be subjected because she has always been so.... It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity.... It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
Mary WollstonecraftThe challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.
Judith MartinArchitecture, like dress, is an exercise in good manners, and good manners involve the habit of skillful insincerity - the habit of saying "good morning" to those whose mornings you would rather blight, and of passing the butter to those you would rather starve.
Roger ScrutonThose that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.
William ShakespeareI don't like people being rude. Bad manners and arrogance make me cross. People making others feel uncomfortable. And I really don't like it in restaurants when people are rude or patronising to waiters. I feel like saying, 'They're not your slave'. But my knees only shake around once every five years. You're safe, don't worry.
Alan TitchmarshI would advise him who wishes to imitate well, to look closely into life and manners, and thereby to learn to express them with truth.
HoraceThe ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.
Jonathan SwiftSome 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.
Roger L'EstrangeHuman beings everywhere in the world are affected by the global media now. Still, what I have noticed in the east Asia, in the indigenous world, Alaska in particular, and in back country farm and ranch country, is a higher sense of etiquette, and more respectful manners. Urban middle class cosmopolitan world peoples of all races have become speedy and rude. This is a pretty big generalization though.
Gary SnyderThe Greeks put us to shame not only by their simplicity, which is foreign to our age; they are at the same time our rivals, nay, frequently our models, in those very points of superiority from which we seek comfort when regretting the unnatural character of our manners. We see that remarkable people uniting at once fullness of form and fullness of substance, both philosophising and creating, both tender and energetic, uniting a youthful fancy to the virility of reason in a glorious humanity.
Friedrich SchillerI was brought up in a way that when you're at a dinner party, you don't grab a chip unless it's been offered to everyone else. It's the manners of being brought up by English parents.
Hugh JackmanWhen Jennie, mother of Winston Churchill invited playwright George Bernard Shaw to lunch, he telegraphed: "Certainly not. What have I done to provoke such an attack on my well-known habits?" She replied, "Know nothing of your habits; hope they are better than your manners."
Anne SebbaHow much we forgive to those who yield us the rare spectacle of heroic manners! We will pardon them the want of books, or arts, and even of gentler virtues. How tenaciously we remember them!
Ralph Waldo EmersonThere are still to be found visionary or designing men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace between the states, though dismembered and alienated from each other.... The genius of republics, say they, is pacific; the spirit of commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to extinguish those inflammable humours which have so often kindled into wars. Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of mutual amity and concord.
Alexander HamiltonOctoberโ 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 GrantI was every Londoner's stereotypical idea of a brash, vulgar American. When I got here, it turned out that London was the Wild West, and New York was like London at the height of the Victorian era, in which everyone was far more obsessed with table manners and status-climbing than they are in London. In London, everyone was just crawling over this blizzard of cocaine. Here, if you have more than a glass of wine with your meal, people refer you to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Toby YoungA modest, godly woman will dress modestly. . . The one who is simple and unpretending in her dress and in her manners shows that she understands that a true woman is characterized by moral worth.
Ellen G. WhiteIt is a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people's manners, but drowning would help.
Mark TwainI 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.
Madonna CicconeHe 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.
Sarah Rees BrennanI 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 Marr[Magnus] reminded himself of his manners, and bowed. "Charmed," he said. "Or whatever effect would please you best, I'm sure.
Cassandra ClareIt was good, too, to remember how hard a lot of people had to work to keep a kingdom running well, and that it was simply good manners to let them know, from time to time, how valued they were.
Jean FerrisThe 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.
Lynne TrussI heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind andyour manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends.
Lord ChesterfieldMen 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.
Mary WollstonecraftBarbarism? That's ironic coming from a woman helping to prepare us for slaughter. And what's she basing our success on? Our table manners?
Suzanne CollinsWhat? Was he raised in a barn? Didnโt he ever learn how to close a door? Amateur shape-shiftersโฆNo manners whatsoever.โ โ Sasha โDo we need to get you a Midol before we go?โ โ Sundown โIโm not that easy to soothe, cowboy. My peeves are on a cellular level.โ โ Sasha
Sherrilyn KenyonDefect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.
Ralph Waldo EmersonDressing 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.
Tom FordI 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.
Graydon CarterThe education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions.
Thomas MoreManners are the ability to put someone else at their ease...by turning any answer into another question.
Tina BrownIf you have had no tension in your life, never been screwed up by problems, your mortality well within your own grasp, and someone tells you that God so loved you that He gave His Son to die for you, nothing but good manners will keep you from being amused.
Oswald ChambersMy neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will.
Henry David Thoreau