Polite Conversation Quotes

• 'Tis happy for him that his Father was born before him.

  Jonathan Swift

  Father, Conversation, Polite

  "Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises: Polite Conversation, Directions to Servants and Other Works".

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• I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.

  W. H. Auden

  Thinking, Civilization, Firsts

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• Polite conversation is rarely either.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Inspirational, Funny, Witty

  Fran Lebowitz (1994). “The Fran Lebowitz Reader”, Vintage

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• I tried to groan, Help! Help! But the tone that came out was that of polite conversation.

  Samuel Beckett

  Asking For Help, Tone, Helping

  Samuel Beckett (1967). “Stories & Texts for Nothing”, p.62, Grove Press

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• He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

  Jonathan Swift

  Food, Men, Oysters

  1738 Polite Conversation, dialogue 2.

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• Congress's definition of torture in those laws - the infliction of severe mental or physical pain - leaves room for interrogation methods that go beyond polite conversation.

  John Yoo

  Pain, Law, Definitions

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• The old adage that polite conversation should not include talk of politics or religion is understandable because both subjects are so heavily laden with emotion that discussion can quickly turn to shouting. Blood is shed over politics, religion and the two in combination.

  John C. Danforth

  Blood, Two, Emotion

  "Faith and Politics: How the 'Moral Values' Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together". Book by John C. Danforth (p. 215), 2006.

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• I hate polite conversation. I hate it when people stand around and go, "Hi, how are you?" I hate words that don't have any reason or meaning. Also I hate it when people smoke in elevators and closed in places. It's just so rude.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Hate, People, Rude

  "Madonna Quotes" by Jone Johnson Lewis, www.thoughtco.com. May 2, 2017.

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• Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.

  Jonathan Swift

  Father, Good Woman, Cows

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• I grew up in a family where the women were just nuts. They didn't stand around in cardigans making polite conversation while they chopped tomatoes.

  Nadia Giosia

  Nuts, Tomatoes, Grew Up

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• …but all day long I would be training myself to think, to understand, to criticize, to know myself; I was seeking for the absolute truth: this preoccupation did not exactly encourage polite conversation.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Thinking, Long, Training

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• There was a nice dilemma. How does one interject into a polite conversation, "By the way, in case you're ever interested, I do have a penise."?

  Brent Weeks

  Nice, Doe, Way

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• Beside him a tiny elderly woman was leaning on a cane, studying him with curiosity. Since good manners seemed to require that he speak to her, Jon cast about for some sort of polite conversation pertinent to the occasion. “I hate funerals, don’t you?” He said. “I rather like them,” she said smugly. “At my age, I regard each funeral I attend as a personal triumph, because I was not the guest of honor.

  Judith McNaught

  Hate, Elderly, Funeral

  Judith McNaught (2003). “Paradise”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

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• Democracy isn't solely about polite conversations in parliaments. It needs to be continually refreshed with raw passions, anger and ideals.

  Geoff Mulgan

  Passion, Democracy, Needs

  Geoff Mulgan (2006). “Good and Bad Power: The Ideals and Betrayals of Government”

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• The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connexion of thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Vocabulary, Would Be

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.209, Harvard University Press

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