Manners Quotations

Wearing the correct dress for any occasion is a matter of good manners.

For the standard of Christian life was to be strained to a higher pitch; more fasting was required, and more careful separation from the manners and enjoyments of the world; celibacy and martyrdom had great value set upon them, and second marriages were prohibited.

Politeness is half good manners and half good lying.

You can get through life with bad manners, but it's easier with good manners.

Let's face it: professing a deep interest in movies, the absolutely dominant global art form of the last century, is at this point like professing an interest in air. Passion is nice. Erudition is admirable. But it's like that moment when good manners cross over into meaningless etiquette.

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

I lived in a world where social arrangements were taken for granted and assumed to be timeless. A child's obligation was to learn these usages, not to question them. The complexities of racial deportment were of a piece with learning manners and etiquette more generally.

I think the thing I miss most in our age is our manners. It sounds so old-fashioned in a way. But even bad people had good manners in the old days, and manners hold a community together, and manners hold a family together; in a way, they hold the world together.

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.

Persian social manners are well known, and there is no other society that can compete with them.

I grew up in the Midwest, so I have sort of an honorable moral code. But I moved to a city and joined a sort of fast crowd. A lot of people who grew up in the city sort of aren't aware of manners and other ways of life and 'common decency.'

You learn, just as you learn good manners, how to approach things with a certain amount of diplomacy.

Bedside manners are no substitute for the right diagnosis.

The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones.

I learned everything from that show, so it's just a wonderful memory to me. A lot of people would be embarrassed to admit that they were on 'Barney', but I embrace the fact. I just had such a wonderful time doing that show... I learned what a camera and prop is, and all that. I learned my manners too, so I guess that's a good thing!

Manners are the basic building blocks of civil society.

Politeness is only one half good manners and the other half good lying.

Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.

The news media is so quick to pick up tragic stories of imperiled children that it seems like there are more terrible events today than ever before - when in fact it's quite the opposite. It is, in all manners possible to calculate, the safest time in the history of civilization to be a kid.

To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all.

In my book, all manners are is thinking of somebody else.

He combines the manners of a Marquis with the morals of a Methodist.

I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.

Class is considerate of others. It knows that good manners is nothing more than a series of petty sacrifices.

To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable.

But my manners also came from when I was in college and began participating in critiques. You have to speak with someone respectfully about their work and be honest and open, without hurting them.

You lose your manners when you are poor

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.

High rank and soft manners may not always belong to a true heart.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

The man who practises unselfishness, who is genuinely interested in the welfare of others, who feels it a privilege to have the power to do a fellow-creature a kindness - even though polished manners and a gracious presence may be absent - will be an elevating influence wherever he goes.

Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.

True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

In the period before the arrival of Mrs. Thatcher, politics had been in such low esteem. Everything was so hedged, so mealy-mouthed. Then along came this woman who seemed to have no manners at all and said exactly what she thought. Everyone's eyes were popping and their jaws were dropping, and I really enjoyed that.

A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.

Where modesty's ill manners, 'tis but fitThat impudence and malice pass for wit.

Behavior is the theory of manners practically applied.

Contraries are cured by contraries.

To offend is my pleasure; I love to be hated.

Etiquette can be at the same time a means of approaching people and of staying clear of them.

Ever the characteristic manners of cowardice.

Please don't think me negligent or rude. I am both, in effect, of course, but please don't think me either.

Oh, but I think that thoughtfulness and manners are everything.

Some people are so methodical that that is all they are or ever will be.

I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.

I love cabdrivers. I love their unpredictable manners. I love the pictures of their families on the visors. I love the fact that most of them think I'm Martha Stewart.

rudeness to Mrs. Dosely was like dropping a pat of butter on to a hot plate - it slid and melted away.

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his MAKING friends--whether he may be equally capable of RETAINING them, is less certain.

My daughter is a very girly girl and this is the kind of thing she'd like to do anyways. Now I feel much more confident when I send her to a friend's house -- I don't have to worry whether she's going to behave or not. Reinforcing her manners from a third party really made an impact on her.

My grandparents were far more English in their manners than they were Chinese. For example, we spoke English at home, had afternoon tea every day, and my grandfather, who attended university in Scotland, would smoke his pipe after dinner.

New Yorkers, in general, love disaster. They love blizzards, power failures, etc. (I don't mean that they loved September 11.) A shared disaster brings them together more - ethnically, racially - because the disaster affects almost all of them, making no distinctions. Their manners are generally very good indeed. And their generosity can be without limits.

I wish there were some way we could check the DNA on some of these SOBs that are allowed to come to games and show bad manners and throw stuff at Duke's team -- a class coach and a class team. Why is it that we find that all over the country, not only in college, but in pros? You ought to be able to check the DNA of an idiot, and do something about it, so you'll not be able to see it again.

I grew up in South Carolina. I have been taught in the ways of southern hospitality. Residents that enter my business will always be treated with outstanding manners and cleanliness. I take each customer and tattoo seriously -- this is how I support my family.

I have always thought you could take the measure of a man by his sports manners - that is to say, the way in which he conducts himself on the playing field, or even over a game of chess or cards.

He seems to recognize people. His manners are always intact. He is very gracious when people come to see him. He is his same self in a lot of ways. He just doesn't always remember.

We looked on the hopheads, crooks and gunsels and on their bawdy ladies as members of a family among whom we were privileged to move. There was no caste system, moral or social, in our manners.

He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing.

Kansas is a state of the Union, but it is also a state of mind, a neurotic condition, a psychological phase, a symptom, indeed, something undreamed of in your philosophy, an inferiority complex against the tricks and manners of plutocracy -- social, political and economic.

I remember my father, who was 'somebody' in the synagogue, bringing home with him one of the poor men who waited outside to be chosen to share the Passover meal. These patriarchal manners I remember well, although there was about them an air of bourgeois benevolence which was somewhat comic.

Parents are realizing that manners could become extinct, and they have to get on the ball and do something about it, ... Manners are not in the genes; they are not inherited. They must be taught and learned.

Nations are equal in respect to each other, and entitled to claim equal consideration for their rights, whatever may be their relative dimensions or strength or however greatly they may differ in government, religion or manners

Manners are not idle, but the fruit. Of loyal nature and of noble mind.

Manners are how you show how you're going to relate to someone else.

Most coaches' contracts have termination provisions, both with and without cause. In the 'without cause' situation, there's an amount the coach is entitled to under contract. That can be clear, or it can be interpreted in different manners -- and what's clear to us is not clear to (Cincinnati), and they say vice versa.

Treat your superior as a father, your equal as a brother, and your inferior as a son.

Well may they boast themselves an ancient Nation; For they were bred e'er manners were in fashion

Oh Tigger, where are your manners?" "I don’t know, but I bet they’re having more fun than I am.

The greater person is one of courtesy.

There is no nobility with bad manners.

There is no rest for the person who has envy, and there is no love for the person who has bad manners.

Good manners require space and time.

For you cannot have gentility without paying for it.

And now, gentlemen, like your manners, I must leave you.

I have no small talk and Peel has no manners.

Good manners are a sign of strength.

Wouldn't it be a helluva joke if all this were really burnt cork and you people were being tolerant for nuthin'?

The greater man the greater courtesy.

I have no use for people who exhibit manners.

Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.

I would define morality as enlightened self-interest...That old Platonic ideal that there are certain pure moral forms just isn't where we are.

Well, I'm from the South originally. I grew up in South Carolina definitely learning about manners and being proper and having to go to cotillions.

I never let my politics supersede my manners.

I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.

When people ask me about what I learned from martial arts, I don't talk about favorite punches or kicks, or about fights won or lost. I talk about learning self-discipline, about ethics and manners and benevolence and fairness.

An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent.

Prepare yourself for the world, as the athletes used to do for their exercise; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.

The mysteries of creation are marvelous. When two persons meet at any time or place, the differences between them are patent. Their forms and manners differ. They differ in their cleverness and intelligence. Their opinions also vary. Without understanding what underlies these differences, the materialist thinker emphasizes the differences. Today, a growing number of intellectuals, ignoring the unity that underlies the diversity, propagate the cult of differences.  The good persons who realize the unity behind the apparent diversity are dwindling in numbers from day to day.  This is highly unfortunate.

The mother must set the example in holding out the shrine as the heart of the house hold! She must enforce discipline over the children in personal cleanliness in humility and hospitality, in good manners and acts of service.

After all, eating is natural, but we don't all have good table manners.

Adam and Eve are like imaginary number, like the square root of minus one... If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it.

Speech and debate are not just a stylistic skill. I so whole heartily believe that kids, by the time they graduate, need to be able to get up in front of a group and say something meaningful. That translates into all courses and all manners of life.

This is a society that puts a great stress on etiquette, manners and performing roles. Even in the midst of a terrible disaster, it's still expected that you perform your role.

They're really a terrific bunch of kids, and their manners are immaculate. They realize they're not just representing themselves, they're representing their country.

Formalized rules of manners were so great because they left no room for basic human haplessness. They allowed us to circumvent our natural boorish tendency to disregard the feelings of others.