Polite Quotes - Page 17

• Some people did not like this ceremonious style. But after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.

  Winston Churchill

  War, Men, Japan

  "The Second World War, Volume III : The Grand Alliance". Book by Winston S. Churchill, chapter 32, 1950.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Marriage isn't a contest to see who is most often right. Marriage requires being what the Japanese call 'the wise bamboo,' which means you bend so you don't break. Treat your spouse with the flexibility and respect you would give to a top client. Think how we treat clients; We smile, we are polite, we listen to their ideas. Never forget that your spouse is your most important client.

  Joan Rivers

  Wise, Mean, Thinking

  45 Copy quote

• The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Want, Violence

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.331

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The audience was swell. They were so polite they covered their mouths when they yawned.

  Bob Hope

  Mouths, Audience, Covered

  5 Copy quote

• The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those distinctions which characterize a people.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Country, Character, People

  Oliver Goldsmith (1834). “An inquiry into the present state of polite learning. The Bee. History of Cyrillo Padovano. Life of Dr. Parnell. Life of Lord Bolingbroke. Prefaces and introductions”, p.77

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poetry is an act of distillation. It takes contingency samples, is selective. It telescopes time. It focuses what most often floods past us in a polite blur.

  Diane Ackerman

  Past, Poetry, Telescopes

  Diane Ackerman (1999). “Deep Play”, Random House Incorporated

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  91 Copy quote

• When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.

  Judith Martin

  People, Impossible, Rudeness

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Presumably a movement is more polite than a revolution, and a lot slower.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Movement, Revolution

  Linda Ellerbee (1993). “Move On”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid? [Referring to Gothic novels, fashionable in England at the beginning of the 19th century, but frowned upon in polite society.]

  Jane Austen

  England, Gothic, Century

  4 Copy quote

• There are people who balk at small civilities on account of their manifest insincerity. ... It is better and more logical to accept all the polite phraseology which facilitates intercourse, and contributes to the sweetness of life. If we discarded the formal falsehoods which are the currency of conversation, we should not be one step nearer the vital things of truth.

  Agnes Repplier

  Sweetness Of Life, People, Steps

  7 Copy quote

• What I expect from my male friends is that they are polite and clean. What I expect from my female friends is unconditional love, the ability to finish my sentences for me when I am sobbing, a complete and total willingness to pour their hearts out to me, and the ability to tell me why the meat thermometer isn't supposed to touch the bone.

  Anna Quindlen

  Friendship, Women, Heart

  Anna Quindlen (2010). “Living Out Loud”, p.32, Ballantine Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I come from people who have always been polite enough to feel that nothing has ever happened to them.

  Patricia Hampl

  People, Enough, Politeness

  4 Copy quote

• the habit of generalizing from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public eye. Nothing, for example can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite people fond of dancing and light wines.

  Kate Douglas Wiggin

  Children, Memories, Wine

  8 Copy quote

• Spin' is a polite word for deception. Spinners mislead by means that range from subtle omissions to outright lies. Spin paints a false picture of reality by bending facts, mischaracterizing the words of others, ignoring or denying crucial evidence, or just 'spinning a yarn' - by making things up.

  Kathleen Hall Jamieson

  Lying, Mean, Reality

  Brooks Jackson, Kathleen Hall Jamieson (2007). “unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation”, p.7, Random House

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Successful leaders develop effective strategies for maintaining their boundaries. ... Most time bandits don't know any better. And being a time bandit is a matter of context. One person's time bandit is another person's pleasant diversion. ... Instead of gritting our teeth to be polite and resenting the time bandit for holding us up, the best choice is to be honest. We cannot expect another person to honor our needs unless we affirm them ourselves.

  Diane Dreher

  Leadership, Time, Successful

  10 Copy quote

• To be polite to everybody except the people they love most is a nervous affectation that afflicts many families ... when they come home, they take off their smiles and soft words, and sit about, spiritually in their underwear. This isn't pretty.

  Margaret Fishback

  Family, Home, People

  4 Copy quote

• murder is not polite.

  Mignon G. Eberhart

  Murder

  4 Copy quote

• It's a dirty little secret that most New Yorkers are pleasant, thoughtful, patient, and polite. The Chamber of Commerce must work overtime to maintain the surly, off-putting image that is widely believed to define the city. In truth, niceness is nearly epidemic in this town.

  Judith Kelman

  Dirty, Thoughtful, Cities

  Judith Kelman (2004). “Every Step You Take”, Jove Publications

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you silence yourself, if you try to be good, if you try to be polite, or toe a party line, you end up paying for that in the long run. You pay for it... with your homeland, or with your soul, or with your artistic vision.

  Diana Abu-Jaber

  Running, Party, Long

  "Diana Abu-Jaber: The Only Response to Silencing is to Keep Speaking". Interview with Andrea Shalal-Esa, www.aljadid.com. 2002.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ninety percent of the people in any group are nice, raised to be polite, and have more in common than not.

  Susan RoAne

  Nice, People, Groups

  4 Copy quote

• ...Baltimore. It's imperfect. Boy, is it imperfect. And there are parts of its past that make you wince. It's not all marble steps and waitresses calling you 'hon,' you know. Racial strife in the sixties, the riots during the Civil War. F. Scott Fitzgerald said it was civilized and gay, rotted and polite. The terms are slightly anachronistic now, but I think he was essentially right.

  Laura Lippman

  War, Gay, Boys

  5 Copy quote

• If a person feels terrible, it usually should not be shown or acknowledged during a greeting exchange. Instead, the unhappy person is expected to conceal negative feelings, putting on a polite smile to accompany the “Just fine, thank you, and how are you?” reply to the “How are you today?” The true feelings will probably go undetected, not because the smile is such a good mask but because in polite exchanges people rarely care how the other person actually feels.

  Paul Ekman

  Unhappy Person, People, Feelings

  19 Copy quote

• The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense.

  William Hazlitt

  Country, Scotch, Giving

  William Hazlitt, James Thornton (1967). “Miscellaneous writings”

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways.

  Ruth Benedict

  Brave, Degrees, Loyal

  Ruth Benedict (1967). “The chrysanthemum and the sword: patterns of Japanese culture”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source