Popular quotes about Manners! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 64
Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.
Flannery O'ConnorThe great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no thirdclass carriages, and one soul is as good as another.
George Bernard ShawIt 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 WollstonecraftFor as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.
Niccolo Machiavelli... so long as woman labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above her own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when shedares to demand rights and privileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, personal appearance, and character are subjects for ridicule and detraction.
Elizabeth Cady StantonThose 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 ShakespeareClothes 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 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.
Edward GibbonRepublics 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.
James MonroeThe manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not.
John Quincy AdamsIn relations with people, as in art, if you always stick to style, manners, and what will work, and you're never caught off guard, then some beautiful experiences never happen.
Helen FrankenthalerThe talent of a meat packer, the morals of a money changer, and the manners of an undertaker.
William Allen WhiteClass is considerate of others. It knows that good manners is nothing more than a series of petty sacrifices.
Ann LandersWriters 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 is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.
Hilary MantelManners require showing consideration of all human beings, not just the ones to whom one is close.
Judith MartinArles 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.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of BlessingtonTo be thoroughly imbued, with the liberal arts refines the manners, and makes men to be mild and gentle in their conduct.
OvidAtheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property.
Jeremy CollierIn 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.
Enid BagnoldThe complaints of contemporary writes, who deplore the increase of luxury and deprevation of manners, are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation. There are few observers who possess a clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society, and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel, in the same uniform direction, the bland and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals.
Edward GibbonWords can be worrisome, poeple complex, motives and manners unclear, grant her the wisdom to choose her path right, free from unkindness and fear.
Neil GaimanNo advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
George OrwellSome are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.
Raymond ChandlerThe basis of good manners is self-reliance. Necessity is the law of all who are not self-possessed.
Ralph Waldo EmersonSnobs look down on people, and I look down on everyone. Not in a snooty, classist way - I mean because I'm better than everyone. I don't give a s**t about good manners.
Murdoc NiccalsGood manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is some reason to believe that when a man does not write his poetry it escapes by other vents through him, instead of the one vent of writing; clings to his form and manners, whilst poets have often nothing poetical about them except their verses.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe most elementary of good manners . . . at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.
Laura EsquivelI'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.
Lauren GrahamJapan is the most intoxicating place for me. In Kyoto, there's an inn called the Tawaraya which is quite extraordinary. The Japanese culture fascinates me: the food, the dress, the manners and the traditions. It's the travel experience that has moved me the most.
Roman CoppolaManners 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 ChambersMen sometimes have to leave their ladies alone, and ladies are not responsible for the bad manners of fools.
Charlaine HarrisThe delicious faces of children, the beauty of school-girls, "the sweet seriousness of sixteen," the lofty air of well-born, well-bred boys, the passionate histories in the looks and manners of youth and early manhood, and the varied power in all that well-known company that escort us through life,--we know how these forms thrill, paralyze, provoke, inspire, and enlarge us.
Ralph Waldo EmersonComforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it.
Gilbert K. ChestertonIn war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the meaning of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James MadisonPlasticity loves new moulds because it can fill them, but for a man of sluggish mind and bad manners there is decidedly no place like home.
George SantayanaShe began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.
Jane AustenAn armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Robert A. HeinleinI took the T from Logan airport to Harvard Square. I hate driving in Boston. It's the traffic that drives me spare, and the absolutely terrible manners of the motorists. Other New Englanders refer to Massachusetts drivers as "Massholes.
Geraldine BrooksIt is by no means enough that an officer should be capable. . . . He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor. . . . No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention, even if the reward be only one word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate.
John Paul Jones