quotations about manners
Manners aim to facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids traveling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Manners", Essays
Bad manners are the fruits of a coarse nature and unwise training.
CLARA JESSUP MOORE
Sensible Etiquette of the Best Society
It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.
GEORGETTE HEYER
April Lady
Good manners do more for a man that good looks.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
In our manners, tranquility is the supreme power.
MME. DE MAINTENON
attributed, Day's Collacon
For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, believes that there is a ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment, and speak or abstain, to take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way: and that strong will is always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Manners", Essays
It's always galling to be taught good manners by an enemy.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires
That makes the good and bad of manners, namely, what helps or hinders fellowship.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Manners", Essays
Emperors and rich men are by no means the most skillful masters of good manners. No rent roll nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimulations: and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as really all forms of good-breeding point that way.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Manners", Essays
I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.
RAYMOND CHANDLER
The Big Sleep
Air and manners are more expressive than words.
S. RICHARDSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Should we distrust [a] man because his manners are not our manners?
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
The Last of the Mohicans
All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Mens Understandings.
ANTHONY ASHLEY-COOPER
"Sensus Communis", Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
Manners are laws in their infancy.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Manners are what is left when serious issues of human relations are removed from consideration; yet without manners serious human relations are impossible.
MARK CALDWELL
A Short History of Rudeness
There is no outward mark of politeness that does not have a profound moral reason. The right education would be that which taught the outward mark and the moral reason together.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Elective Affinities
Perhaps instead of teaching manners, parents should teach the statistical probability that the person you are speaking to is just as good as you are.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mortals and Others
As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd things into common good manners.
JONATHAN SWIFT
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding
A man's own manner and character is what best becomes him.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Tablets