Manners Quotes - Page 17

• That only can with propriety be styled refinement which, by strengthening the intellect, purifies the manners.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Refinement, Strengthening, Intellect

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• it's no longer socially acceptable to make bigoted statements and racist remarks. Some people are having an awful time with that: 'I didn't know anybody would be offended!' Well, where have you been? I remember when people got away with it and they don't anymore. That's fabulous.

  Judith Martin

  People, Would Be, Racist

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• To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.

  Judith Martin

  Ignorance, Sacrifice, Compassion

  Judith Martin (1996). “Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing, and Other Lapses in Civility”, Crown

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• The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it's very cumbersome to switch to a different family.

  Judith Martin

  Family, Different, World

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• The whole country wants civility. Why don't we have it? It doesn't cost anything. No federal funding, no legislation is involved. One answer is the unwillingness to restrain oneself. Everybody wants other people to be polite to them, but they want the freedom of not having to be polite to others.

  Judith Martin

  Country, Freedom, Equality

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• The challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.

  Judith Martin

  Nice, People, Challenges

  Judith Martin (1990). “Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

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• Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.

  Judith Martin

  Law, People, Missing

  Judith Martin (1996). “Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing, and Other Lapses in Civility”, Crown

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• The introduction of Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these rude and fierce manners.

  Edmund Burke

  Rude, Benefits, Fierce

  Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.87, Transaction Publishers

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• Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.

  Edmund Burke

  Taken, Men, Understanding

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• 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.

  Edmund Burke

  Reality, Skills, Way

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• Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well.

  Jane Austen

  Friendship, Nice, Mean

  Jane Austen (2013). “Persuasion In Modern English”, p.296, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Animals are murdered to produce meat; vegetables are torn up, peeled, and chopped; most of what we eat is treated with fire; and chewing is designed remorselessly to finish what killing and cooking began. People naturally prefer that none of this should happen to them. Behind every rule of table etiquette lurks the determination of each person present to be a diner, not a dish.

  Margaret Visser

  Determination, Animal, Fire

  Margaret Visser (2015). “The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners”, p.17, Open Road Media

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• Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Character, Men, Age

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2013). “Vindication of the Rights of Women”, p.18, Lulu.com

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• Custom is a mutable thing; yet we readily recognize the permanence of certain social values. Graciousness and courtesy are never old-fashioned.

  Emily Post

  Social Values, Courtesy, Certain

  Emily Post (1960). “Etiquette: the blue book of social usage”

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• It's the Point of Your View that Decides What You See - / One Man's Flop Is Another Man's Hit. / From Manners to Movies, the Picture Keeps Changing / Depending Upon Where You Sit.

  Bette Midler

  Men, Views, Perspective

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• An acquaintance with the muses, in the education of youth, contributes not a little to soften manners. It gives a delicate turn to the imagination and a polish to the mind.

  Samuel Richardson

  Education, Giving, Imagination

  Samuel Richardson (1980). “A collection of the moral and instructive sentiments: a facsimile reproduction”, Scholars Facsimilies & Reprint

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• The child takes most of his nature of the mother, besides speech, manners, and inclination.

  Herbert Spencer

  Mother, Children, Speech

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• Private problems don't constitute an excuse for bad manners.

  Margaret Millar

  Problem, Excuse, Bad Manners

  Margaret Millar (2002). “Best Mysteries of All Time: A Stranger in My Grave”, Impress

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• Let a man use great reverence and manners to himself.

  Pythagoras

  Men, Use, Reverence

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• 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.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Past, Lasting Change, Effort

  Millicent Fenwick (1948). “Vogue's book of etiquette: a complete guide to traditional forms and modern usage”

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• Only a great fool or a great genius is likely to flout all social grace with impunity, and neither one, doing so, makes the most comfortable companion.

  Amy Vanderbilt

  Grace, Genius, Fool

  Amy Vanderbilt, Letitia Baldrige (1978). “The Amy Vanderbilt complete book of etiquette: a guide to contemporary living”, Doubleday Books

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• Good manners spring from just one thing - kind impulses.

  Elsa Maxwell

  Spring, Good Man, Kind

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• In the old days, ptomaine poisoning was a cover-all. If you missed a show and you were young, it meant you were having an abortion. If you were old, it meant you were having a face lift.

  Ruth Gordon

  Abortion, Faces, Moral

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• The aristocrat, when he wants to, has very good manners. The Scottish upper classes, in particular, have that shell-shocked look that probably comes from banging their heads on low beams leaping to their feet whenever a woman comes into the room. Aristocrats are also deeply male chauvinist, and ... on the whole they tend to be reactionary.

  Jilly Cooper

  Upper Class, Feet, Good Man

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• One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately.

  Anita Brookner

  Children, Growing Up, Passion

  Anita Brookner (2016). “Brief Lives”, p.69, Penguin UK

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