Quotes About Manners

There are two qualities that make fiction. One is the sense of mystery and the other is the sense of manners. You get the manners from the texture of existence that surrounds you. The great advantage of being a Southern writer is that we don't have to go anywhere to look for manners; bad or good, we've got them in abundance. We in the South live in a society that is rich in contradiction, rich in irony, rich in contrast, and particularly rich in its speech

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.

Evil communication corrupts good manners. I hope to live to hear that good communication corrects bad manners.

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

I 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.

A gentleman doesn't have one set of manners for the house of a poor man and another for the house of someone with an income incomparable to his own.

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.

One musn't overrate the culture of what used to be called "top people" before the wars. They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans.

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.

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

Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.

What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money; and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.

Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.

How 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!

The mountebank told them that God was surely trying to kill them, possibly because He was through with them, and that they should have the good manners to die. This, as you can see, they did.

I often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity; for, while there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we donot teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual; however, for we do not habitually demand any more of each other.

No girl who is well bred, 'kind, and modest, is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want of manners, or of heart.

There 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.

That survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything. It's such a powerful force.

Class is considerate of others. It knows that good manners is nothing more than a series of petty sacrifices.

I 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.

A 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.

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.

It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.

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

Judging others’ intentions is the right of God alone. We don’t have this right, and it is poor manners with God.

The people were simpler, more peaceable and friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown.

Honor has to say "please" and "thank you." Manners are really important.

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

Fathers are very, very important in building the foundations and self-esteem of children. For me, the way that I was raised, consideration, courtesy and manners are really key and I think the father plays a big role in setting an example to children in how to behave out in the world and how to treat people. It's a little bit different when it comes from the dad rather than the mum somehow.

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.

Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.

There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

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.

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.

There are few pages of history which do not demonstrate that public prayer and ritual never inoculated people against mass-madness and cruelty. What is needed is emphasis on morality and manners.

Without modesty, woman is devoid of beauty and culture. Humility, purity of thought and manners, meekness, surrender to high ideals, sensitivity, sweetness of temper - the peculiar blend of all these qualities is modesty. It is the most invaluable of all jewels for women.

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

In the ordinary course of things, how many succeed in society merely by virtue of their manners, while others, however meritorious, fail through lack of them? After all, it's only barbarians who wear uncut precious stones.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage.

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.

Take off all the masks, manners, fancy clothes, all the devices you use, and be the most honest person you can be with yourself. Then, whatever love you get then is real. All the false approaches, like trying to be a player, only bring false results.

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.

I find it upsetting to see the erosion of manners. It's very scary. Where are the 'pleases' and 'thank yous?'

The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much.

Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love, and respect.