Formality Quotes - Page 3

• The act of nutrition is not a purely physiological event... The family meal is a formality that cultivates in us... a capacity for sharing, generosity, thoughtfulness, a talent for civilized conversation.

  Francine du Plessix Gray

  Generosity, Events, Meals

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• Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.

  Lynne Truss

  Drawing, Roots, Attention

  "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation". Book by Lynne Truss, www.today.com. November 6, 2003.

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• I'd like to shower and change clothes," she said. "Would you mind waiting for me a half hour?" The question seemed to amuse him. "Not at all," he said with exaggerated formality. "Please take all the time you need." Michael watched her walk away. Did he mind waiting a half hour for her? Not at all. He'd been waiting years for her.

  Judith McNaught

  Years, Clothes, Waiting

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• ...there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.

  Robin McKinley

  Missing Him, Too Much, Lasts

  Robin Mckinley (2010). “Pegasus”, p.235, Penguin

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• Most people think, when they're young, that they're going to the top of their chosen world, and that the climb up is only a formality. Without that faith, I suppose, they might never start. Somewhere on the way they lift their eyes to the summit and know they aren't going to reach it; and happiness then is looking down and enjoying the view they've got, not envying the one they haven't.

  Dick Francis

  Eye, Thinking, Views

  Dick Francis (2005). “Reflex”, p.18, Penguin

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• Marriage is a formality, a legal bondage. Love is of the heart; marriage is of the mind. That's why I am never in favor of marriage.

  Rajneesh

  Marriage, Heart, Love Is

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• The day when a Frenchman switches from the formality of vous to the familiarity of tu is a day to be taken seriously. It is an unmistakable signal that he has decided - after weeks or months or sometimes years - that he likes you. It would be chulish and unfriendly of you not to return the compliment. And so, just when you are at last feeling comfortable with vous and all the plurals that go with it, you are thrust headlong in to the singular world of tu.

  Peter Mayle

  Taken, Years, Feelings

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• Courtesy should be apparent in all our actions and words and in all aspects of daily life. But be courtesy, I do not mean rigid, cold formality. Courtesy in the truest sense is selfless concern for the welfare and physical and mental comfort of the other person.

  Mas Oyama

  Mean, Comfort, Selfless

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• Mind how you pray. Make real business of it. Let it never be a dead formality...plead the promise in a truthful, business-like way...Ask for what you want, because the Lord has promised it. Believe that you have the blessing, and go forth to your work in full assurance of it. Go from your knees singing, because the promise is fulfilled: thus will your prayer be answered...the strength [not length] of your prayer...wins...God; and the strength of prayer lies in your faith in the promise which you pleaded before the Lord.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Prayer, Lying, Real

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• Under this law (Controlled Substances Act) a bureaucrat-usually not elected-decides whether or not a substance is dangerous and how dangerous that substance is. There's no more messing around with legislatures, presidents, or other bothersome formalities. When MDMA (ecstasy) was made illegal in 1986, no elected official voted on that. It was done "in house." People are now in jail because they did something that an administrator declared was wrong.

  Peter McWilliams

  Law, Jail, People

  Peter McWilliams (1996). “Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country”, Mary Book / Prelude Press

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• It has not been my fortune to know very much of Freemasonry, but I have had the great fortune to know many Freemasons and have been able in that way to judge the tree by its fruit. I know of your high ideals. I have seen that you hold your meetings in the presence of the open Bible, and I know that men who observe that formality have high sentiments of citizenship, of worth, and character. That is the strength of our Commonwealth and nation.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Character, Men, Judging

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• To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Religious, Mean

  Thomas Merton (1975). “He is risen”, Tabor Pub

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• The summit is the mere formality, the ceremonial demonstration of what was agreed to long ago, weeks, months before the summit.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Long Ago, Months, Week

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• If you just live in New York and you only know New York, you know a certain kind of condition of formality and informality. By being able to go to another context and to be able to use that as a counter foil to the context you know, you are about to see a wider range.

  David Adjaye

  New York, Able, Use

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The officers do not beat the men; the officers and men receive equal treatment. Soldiers are free to hold meetings and speak out. Trivial formalities have been done away with and the accounts are open for all to inspect.

  Mao Zedong

  Men, Speaks Out, Soldier

  Mao Zedong (2017). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works”, p.84, Lulu.com

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• The sort of formality that goes into my artwork I would not expect from everybody in the world. I'm sort of pushing that point to its limit, in my mind, but I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with using a laptop so long as we have some understanding of how it works a little bit.

  Tristan Perich

  Thinking, Long, Understanding

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• People sometimes think of 'queen' as a title that's shrouded with protocol and formality, and for that reason sometimes people are not easily saying what they want to say. They're reluctant to express their opinions, and I kind of find that frustrating because I want to know what people really, really think.

  Queen Rania of Jordan

  Queens, Thinking, People

  "Queen Rania discusses her new book "The Sandwich Swap" with Oprah". Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.queenrania.jo. April 23, 2010.

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• Woe unto thee if after all thy profession thou shouldst be found under the power of ignorance, lost in formality, drowned in earthly-mindedness, envenomed with malice, exalted in an opinion of thine own righteousness, leavened with hypocrisy and carnal ends in God's service.

  Joseph Alleine

  Ignorance, Woe Unto, Hypocrisy

  Joseph Alleine (1824). “An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners”, p.170

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• In the modern world there's no such thing as formality. A dinner jacket used to mean a tuxedo, you know?

  Noah Emmerich

  Mean, Tuxedos, World

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Psychobabble is... a set of repetitive verbal formalities that kills off the very spontaneity, candor, and understanding it pretends to promote. It's an idiom that reduces psychological insight to a collection of standardized observations, that provides a frozen lexicon to deal with an infinite variety of problems.

  Richard Rosen

  Understanding, Frozen, Jargon

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• Conventions vs. spontaneity. This is a dialectical choice, it depends on the assessment you make of your own times. If you judge that your own time is ridden with empty insincere formalities, you plump for spontaneity, for indecorous behavior even...Much of morality is the task of compensating for one's age. One assumes unfashionable virtues, in an indecorous time. In a time hollowed out by decorum, one must school oneself in spontaneity.

  Susan Sontag

  School, Assessment, Judging

  Susan Sontag (2009). “Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963”, p.135, Macmillan

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• Boredom has to be the most life sapping, mental disease you can be afflicted with.The most accurate definition of boredom I have ever heard is this - Boredom is the absence of a creative idea. But there is a simple cure - begin to think immediately of a better way to do something. The creative juices are within you but you must turn on the tap. Those who are bored are not living; they are dying. When their heart stops beating, it will be a mere formality. The best way to do anything has never been thought of. Get on a creative improvement kick and jar others mentally into the same activity.

  Bob Proctor

  Heart, Simple, Thinking

  FaceBook post by Bob Proctor from Apr 28, 2012

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• One of the nice things about our marriage, at least to my way of thinking, is that my wife and I no longer have to argue every thing through. We each know what the other will say, and so the saying becomes an unnecessary formality. No doubt some marriage counselor would explain to us that our problem is a failure to communicate, but to my way of thinking we've worked long and hard to achieve this silence, Lily's and mine, so fraught with mutual understanding.

  Richard Russo

  Nice, Thinking, Long

  Richard Russo (2017). “Straight Man”, p.54, Atlantic Books

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• A wedding is the formality a man has to go through before going to work for a new boss.

  Evan Esar

  Men, Boss, Going To Work

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• The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth -- he could at the same time and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprise of any quarter of the world -- he could secure forthwith, if he wished, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Country, Morning, Peace

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