Politeness Quotes - Page 9

• Ultimately, 'how's it going?' is the most futile and the most profound of questions. To answer it precisely, one would have to make a scrupulous inventory of one's psyche, considering each aspect in detail. No matter: we have to say 'fine' out of politeness and civility and change the subject, or else ruminate the question during our whole lives and reserve our reply for afterward.

  Pascal Bruckner

  Profound, Details, Answers

  Pascal Bruckner (2011). “Perpetual Euphoria: On the Duty to Be Happy”, p.19, Princeton University Press

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• Politeness costs little and yields much.

  Anne-Therese de Marguenat de Courcelles

  Yield, Cost, Littles

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• We define boredom as the pain a person feels when he's doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something he wants to do but won't, can't, or doesn't dare. Boredom is acute when he knows the other thing and inhibits his action, e.g., out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if he has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A large part of stupidity is just the chronic boredom, for a person can't learn, or be intelligent about, what he's not interested in, when his repressed thoughts are elsewhere.

  Paul Goodman

  Pain, Blessing, Intelligent

  "Growing Up Absurd" by Paul Goodman, (pp. 71-72), 1956.

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• The people are different in L.A. There was a time when I lived in New York and that was a bit of a shock, because everybody in New York was so honest, instead of so polite and backstabbing. But you learn to love the backstabbing politeness in L.A.

  Scott Clifton

  New York, People, Different

  Source: movies.about.com

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• [John Adams and Tomas Jefferson] shared experience in 1775 - 1776 in bringing about the separation from Britain and their service in Europe cemented a friendship that in the end withstood the most serious political and religious differences that one could imagine, especially their differences over the French Revolution. It was probably Jefferson's obsession with politeness and civility that kept the relationship from becoming irreparably broken.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Religious, Europe, Differences

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• Since the average person's small supply of politeness must last him all his life, he can't afford to waste it on bridge partners.

  Alfred Sheinwold

  Average, Bridges, Lasts

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• A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the right grain and quality, through a long fronting of men and events, and rubbing on good and bad fortune.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Integrity, Character, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.105, Penguin

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• In the media universe we're in, where there are people screaming on one end, there is no problem at all with having a little bit of extra politeness.

  Gwen Ifill

  Media, People, Littles

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• To the acquisition of the rare quality of politeness, so much of the enlightened understanding is necessary that I cannot but consider every book in every science, which tends to make us wiser, and of course better men, as a treatise on a more enlarged system of politeness.

  Harold Monro

  Book, Men, Understanding

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• The only option is politeness-remember always that you are dealing with other primates.

  Paul Ford

  Remember, Primates

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• It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets.

  James McBride

  Gun, Waiting, Southern

  James McBride (2006). “The Color of Water 10th Anniversary Edition”, p.70, Penguin

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• (Politeness is) a tacit agreement that people's miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made the subject of reproach.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Agreement, People, Intellectual

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “Counsels and Maxims: Top of Schopenhauer”, p.64, 谷月社

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• The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example was no less and no more than the amoount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary? That was the unspoken but implied, and unavoidable question everywhere in India.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Journey, Violence, India

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• Politeness only teaches us to save others from unnecessary pain.... You are not bound by politeness to tell any falsehoods.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Pain, Unnecessary, Teach

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1825). “Works of Maria Edgeworth: Modern Griselda. Moral tales. 1825”, p.83

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• I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords.

  Linus Torvalds

  Lying, Home, Ties

  "King Of Geeks Linus Torvalds Defends His Right To Code In His Bathrobe And Curse At Other Developers". www.forbes.com. July 16, 2013.

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• Look at your [English] ladies of quality are they not forever parting with their husbands - forfeiting their reputations - and is their life aught but dissipation? In common genteel life, indeed, you may now and then meet with very fine girls - who have politeness, sense and conversation - but these are few - and then look at your trademen's daughters - what are they? poor creatures indeed! all pertness, imitation and folly.

  Fanny Burney

  Girl, Daughter, Husband

  "The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney". Vol. 1, p. 47, journal entry, November 17, 1768.

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• In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little inconveniences and preferences which will gratify them, and deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration; it is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expressions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as themselves. How cheap a price for the good will of another!

  Thomas Jefferson

  Real, Sacrifice, Expression

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• Unhappily the habit of being offensive 'without meaning it' leads usually to a way of making amends which the injured person cannot but regard as a being amiable without meaning it.

  George Eliot

  Way, Offensive, Habit

  George Eliot (1839). “Theophrastus Such, Jubal and other poems and The Spanish gypsy”, p.57

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• Treat your enemies with courtesy, and you'll see how valuable it really is. It costs little but pays a nice dividend: those who honor are honored. Politeness and a sense of honor have this advantage: we bestow them on others without losing a thing.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Nice, Honor, Enemy

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• The politeness was painful. I wanted to push through it, to return to the glow of the night of the concert, but I was unsure of how to get back there.

  Gayle Forman

  Night, Return, Painful

  Gayle Forman (2009). “If I Stay”, p.30, Penguin

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• The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.

  Ariel Gore

  People, Silence, World

  Ariel Gore (2003). “Atlas of the Human Heart”, p.23, Seal Press

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• Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.

  John Adams

  Names, Hypocrisy, Suffering

  "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law" by John Adams, teachingamericanhistory.org. 1765.

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• Don’t you bully me with your politeness!

  Yann Martel

  Bully

  Yann Martel (2012). “Life Of Pi, Illustrated”, p.424, Canongate Books

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• Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly. The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him.

  P. T. Barnum

  Men, Kind, Truth Is

  P. T. Barnum (2005). “Making Money”, p.77

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• What is politeness in the home but the outcome of affection and self-respect, and the suppression of all those natural instincts of self-seeking that, allowed their way, produce the worst manners in the world?

  Humphry Davy

  Home, Self, Outcomes

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