Emily Post Quotations

Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor.

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a 'home' might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation.

To do exactly as your neighbors do is the only sensible rule.

She must not swing her arms as though they were dangling ropes; she must not switch herself this way and that; she must not shout; and she must not, while wearing her bridal veil, smoke a cigarette

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a ''home'' might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation.

Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.

Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man - no matter who he is - that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature.

To be a good sportsman, one must be a stoic and never show rancor in defeat, or triumph in victory, or irritation, no matter what annoyance is encountered. One who can not help sulking, or explaining, or protesting when the loser, or exulting when the winner, has no right to take part in games or contests.

Golf is a particularly severe strain upon the amiability of the average person's temper, and in no other game, except bridge, is serenity of disposition so essential.

Never say "Au revoir" unless you have been talking French, or are speaking to a French person.

One very great annoyance in open air gatherings is cigar smoke when blown directly in one's face or worse yet the smoke from a smouldering cigar. It is almost worthy of a study in air currents to discover why with plenty of space all around, a tiny column of smoke will make straight for the nostrils of the very one most nauseated by it!

The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the writer’s personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere paper.

There is no reason why you should be bored when you can be otherwise. But if you find yourself sitting in the hedgerow with nothing but weeds, there is no reason for shutting your eyes and seeing nothing, instead of finding what beauty you may in the weeds. To put it cynically, life is too short to waste it in drawing blanks. Therefore, it is up to you to find as many pictures to put on your blank pages as possible.

There is a big deposit of sympathy in the bank of love, but don't draw out little sums every hour or so - so that by and by, when perhaps you need it badly, it is all drawn out and you yourself don't know how or on what it was spent.

The good guest is almost invisible, enjoying him or herself, communing with fellow guests, and, most of all, enjoying the generous hospitality of the hosts.

Any child can be taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are acquired is a Herculean task.

Elbows are never put on the table while one is eating.

Rather be frumpy than vulgar! Much. Frumps are often celebrities in disguise -- but a person of vulgar appearance is vulgar all through.

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

The joy of joys is the person of light but unmalicious humor.

In popular houses where visitors like to go again and again, there is always a happy combination of some attention on the part of the hostess and the perfect freedom of the guests to occupy their time as they choose.

The eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out" is despicable, but nevertheless, it is the one thing you can never get away from.

The natural impulses of every thoroughbred include his sense of honor; his love of fair play and courage; his dislike of pretense and of cheapness.

To tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to avoid deserved punishment--are all the blackest of black lies.

The fault of bad taste is usually in over-dressing. Quality not effect, is the standard to seek for.

No rule of etiquette is of less importance than which fork we use.

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.

It is impossible for a hatless woman to be chic.

The most vulgar slang is scarcely worse than the attempted elegance which those unused to good society imagine to be the evidence of cultivation.

Children are all more or less little monkeys in that they imitate everything they see. If their mother treats them exactly as she does her visitors they in turn play "visitor" to perfection. Nothing hurts the feelings of children more than not being allowed to behave like grown persons when they think they are able.

Bread is like dressed, hats and shoes - in other words, essential!

The only occasion when the traditions of courtesy permit a hostess to help herself before a woman guest is when she has reason to believe the food is poisoned.

A gentleman does not boast about his junk.

If God had intended for women to wear slacks, He would have constructed them differently.

Unconsciousness of self is not so much unselfishness as it is the mental ability to extinguish all thought of one's self - exactly as one turns out the light.

Never do anything that is unpleasant to others.

A gentleman should never take his hat off with a flourish.

Alas! it is true: "Be polite to bores and so shall you have bores always round about you."

A lady never asks a gentleman to dance, or to go to supper with her.

People who picnic along the public highway leaving a clutter of greasy paper and swill (not a pretty name, but neither is it a pretty object!) for other people to walk or drive past, and to make a breeding place for flies, and furnish nourishment for rats, choose a disgusting way to repay the land-owner for the liberty they took in temporarily occupying his property.

Courtesy demands that you, when you are a guest, shall show neither annoyance nor disappointment--no matter what happens.

Jealousy is the suspicion of one's own inferiority.

Training a child is exactly like training a puppy; a little heedless inattention and it is out of hand immediately; the great thing is not to let it acquire bad habits that must afterward be broken.

A little praise is not only merest justice but is beyond the purse of no one.

The joy of joys is the person of light but unmalicious humor. If you know any one who is gay, beguiling and amusing, you will, if you are wise, do everything you can to make him prefer your house and your table to any other; for where he is, the successful party is also.

Never take more than your share - whether of the road in driving your car, of chairs on a boat or seats on a train, or food at the table.

Excepting a religious ceremonial, there is no occasion where greater dignity of manner is required of ladies and gentlemen both, than in occupying a box at the opera. For a gentleman especially no other etiquette is so exacting.

Manners are like primary colors, there are certain rules and once you have these you merely mix, i.e., adapt, them to meet changing situations.

Manner is personality—the outward manifestation of one’s innate character and attitude toward life.

An overdose of praise is like 10 lumps of sugar in coffee; only a very few people can swallow it.

The attributes of a great lady may still be found in the rule of the four S's: Sincerity, Simplicity, Sympathy, and Serenity.

Houses without personality are a series of walled enclosures with furniture standing around in them. Other houses are filled with things of little intrinsic value, even with much that is shabby and yet they have that inviting atmosphere...

The honor of a gentleman demands the inviolability of his word, and the incorruptibility of his principles. He is the descendent of the knight, the crusader; he is the defender of the defenseless and the champion of justice--or he is not a gentleman.

The fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly tempting. Coarse or profane slang is beside the mark, but "flivver," "taxi," the "movies," "deadly" (meaning dull), "feeling fit," "feeling blue," "grafter," a "fake," "grouch," "hunch" and "right o!" are typical of words that it would make our spoken language stilted to exclude.

To make a pleasant and friendly impression is not only good manners, but equally good business.

Whenever two people come together and their behavior affects one another, you have etiquette.

Nothing appeals to children more than justice, and they should be taught in the nursery to "play fair" in games, to respect each other's property and rights, to give credit to others, and not to take too much credit to themselves.

Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note imaginable is better than none.

Good manners reflect something from inside-an innate sense of consideration for others and respect for self.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life.... Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.

If you are hurt, whether in mind or body, don't nurse your bruises. Get up and light-heartedly, courageously, good temperedly get ready for the next encounter. This is the only way to take life - this is also 'playing' the game!

"Keep your hands to yourself!" might almost be put at the head of the first chapter of every book on etiquette.