Quotes About Manners

We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.

I haven't seen any poet in this country behave nearly as rudely as Newt Gingrich or Bill O'Reilly. I'm not asking these people to approve of everyone's manners. I don't feel obliged to defend the manners of every poet who submits a poem to my web site. That's not my job. My job is to provide them with an opportunity to speak from the heart. If there's not much in the heart and if the mouth is running wild, that's not my problem.

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.

Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.

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

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them.

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.

Some 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?

Good manners are a sign of strength.

We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissible, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century?

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.

Human 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.

New York has always prided itself on its bad manners. That is the real source of our strength.

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and they distributed it every year according to a new division. At the same time, they were not authorised to punish with death, to imprison, or even to strike, a private citizen.

God save us from idealists! They dream of a world without injustice, and what crime won't they commit to get it! I swear, Mirella, I'll settle for a world with good manners.

Any change in customs ... takes generations to accomplish, and must come about by general consent. Even a superficial study of sociology shows the futility of past efforts to make a lasting change in manners by an act of will or authority.

Not a superman who stumbles, but an ape with makeshift manners in whose nickel-plated jungles roam mechanical bananas.

Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings because they are his own.

Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

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.

I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.

Great art has dreadful manners. The greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your reality.

To reject wisdom because the person communicates it is uncouth and his manners are inelegant, what is it but to throw away a pine-apple, and assign for a reason the roughness of its coat?

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

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.

We're living in what I like to call the 'Thank You Economy,' because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way - and do it authentically - are going to have a prayer of competing.

Time 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.

When Jo's conservative sister Meg says she must turn up her hair now that she is a "young lady," Jo shouts, "I'm not! and if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty.... I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It's bad enough to be a girl anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman.

Atheism 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.

As soon as a woman begins to dress "loud," her manners and conversation partake of the same element.

There is a certain physiognomy in manners.

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

It is the same India which has withstood the shocks of centuries, of hundreds of foreign invasions of hundreds of upheavals of manners and customs. It is the same land which stands firmer than any rock in the world, with its undying vigour, indestructible life. Its life is of the same nature as the soul, without beginning and without end, immortal; and we are the children of such a country.

I grew up in the Midwest, so I have sort of an honorable moral code. But I moved to a city and joined a sort of fast crowd. A lot of people who grew up in the city sort of arent aware of manners and other ways of life and common decency.

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.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

Too many people think that "good manners" are about subjugating yourself to others. Not true. Respect, and just as important, self-respect are two key elements in this equation.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, 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. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

The most interesting acquaintanceship I have struck up here is that of Colonel Lapinski. He is without doubt the cleverest Pole - besides being an homme d'action [man of action] - that I have ever met. His sympathies are all on the German side, though in manners and speech he is also a Frenchman. He cares nothing for the struggle of nationalities and only knows the racial struggle. He hates all Orientals, among whom he numbers Russians Turks, Greeks, Armenians, etc., with equal impartiality.... His aim now is to raise a German legion in London.

If we expect to inherit the blessings of our Fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive Simplicity of Manners.

Well if manners maketh man make-up maketh woman.And we don't need a phalanx of behavioural scientists to explain why man judge women by their looks.Because the see bether than thay think.

History is about life. It's awful when the life is squeezed out of it and there's no flavor left, no uncertainties, no horsing around. It always disturbed me how many biographers never gave their subjects a chance to eat. You can tell a lot about people by how they eat, what they eat, and what kind of table manners they have.

Most women find a man with good manners sexy.

Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the pleasure, the laughter, the ridicules of society. The old times live again. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?

TV directors just aren't sexy for some reason, Although, you know, Rob and Kim [Manners] are very sexy in my eyes.

It is perfectly right for a gentleman to say "ladies and gentlemen," but a lady should say, "gentlemen and ladies." You mention your friend's name before you do your own. I always feel like rebuking any woman who says, "ladies and gentlemen." It is a lack of good manners.