Manners Quotes

Most popular manners quotes

All the education young people receive will be in vain if they do not learn good manners. - Mahatma Gandhi quote.
All the education young people receive will be in vain if they do not learn good manners.
Manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth.
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
Manners are the happy way of doing things. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Manners are the happy way of doing things.
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. - Emily Post quote.
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.
Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.
Politeness is the art of selecting among one's real thoughts. - Madame de Stael quote.
Politeness is the art of selecting among one's real thoughts.
To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have a deference for others governs our manners. - Laurence Sterne quote.
To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have a deference for others governs our manners.

morals

Manners are like the zero in arithmetic; they may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal to the value of everything else. - Freya Stark quote.
Manners are like the zero in arithmetic; they may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal to the value of everything else.
Etiquette is getting sleepy in company and not showing it.
You can get through life with bad manners, but it's easier with good manners. - Lillian Gish quote.
You can get through life with bad manners, but it's easier with good manners.
Every generation is convinced there has been a deplorable breakdown of manners.
To be agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you already know. - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord quote.
To be agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you already know.
A gentleman is a man who uses a butter knife when dining alone.
It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming. - Oscar Wilde quote.
It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.

charm

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax. - Arthur Schopenhauer quote.
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

human nature

He who says what he likes, hears what he does not like.
The manner in which it is given is worth more than the gift. - Pierre Corneille quote.
The manner in which it is given is worth more than the gift.

Giving gift

It is much easier to be a hero than a gentleman. - Luigi Pirandello quote.
It is much easier to be a hero than a gentleman.

character

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. - Robert C. Savage quote.
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.

funny

Nothing is less important than which fork you use. - Emily Post quote.
Nothing is less important than which fork you use.
Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual.
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. quote.
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch somebody else doing it wrong, without comment.
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room.
Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love,--now repeated and hardened into usage. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love,--now repeated and hardened into usage.
Never drink from your finger-bowl – it contains only water.
A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable. - Judith Martin quote.
A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.
When God sneezed, I didn't know what to say. - Henny Youngman quote.
When God sneezed, I didn't know what to say.
Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.
Amy Vanderbilt New Complete Book of Etiquette: A Guide to Gracious Living
It would be a swell world if everybody was as pleasant as the fellow who's trying to skin you. - Kin Hubbard quote.
It would be a swell world if everybody was as pleasant as the fellow who's trying to skin you.
A car is useless in New York, essential everywhere else. The same with good manners.

New York City

Learn politeness from the impolite.
— African proverb

proverbs African proverbs

Manners are especially the need of the plain.  The pretty can get away with anything. - Evelyn Waugh quote.
Manners are especially the need of the plain.  The pretty can get away with anything.

beauty

Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open. - Judith Martin quote.
Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open.

charm

We are born charming, frank, and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society. - Judith Martin quote.
We are born charming, frank, and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness. - Dorothy Parker quote.
Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

dullness

He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest. - Walter Benjamin quote.
He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.
Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette.  There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin. - Quentin Crisp quote.
Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette.  There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin.
Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential.
Will Cuppy How to Be a Hermit: Or a Bachelor Keeps House
Protocol is etiquette with a government expense account, and is not to be sneered at. - Judith Martin quote.
Protocol is etiquette with a government expense account, and is not to be sneered at.
Etiquette is about all of human social behavior. Behavior is regulated by law when etiquette breaks down or when the stakes are high—violations of life, limb, property and so on. Barring that, etiquette is a little social contract we make that we will restrain some of our more provocative impulses in return for living more or less harmoniously in a community. - Judith Martin quote.
Etiquette is about all of human social behavior. Behavior is regulated by law when etiquette breaks down or when the stakes are high—violations of life, limb, property and so on. Barring that, etiquette is a little social contract we make that we will restrain some of our more provocative impulses in return for living more or less harmoniously in a community.
If "tact consists in knowing what not to say," etiquette consists in knowing what not to do in the direction of manifesting our impulsives likes and dislikes.
Agnes H. Morton Introduction to Etiquette: Good Manners for All People
Etiquette can be at the same time a means of approaching people and of staying clear of them.
The lie is the basic building block of good manners. - Quentin Crisp quote.
The lie is the basic building block of good manners.
Quentin Crisp Manners from Heaven: A Divine Guide to Good Behavior

lies

It is not ill-bred to adopt a high manner with the great and the powerful, but it is vulgar to lord it over humble people. - Aristotle quote.
It is not ill-bred to adopt a high manner with the great and the powerful, but it is vulgar to lord it over humble people.
Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation. - Honoré de Balzac quote.
Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
I don't mind if you don't like my manners.  I don't like them myself.  They're pretty bad.  I grieve over them on long winter evenings. - Humphrey Bogart quote.
I don't mind if you don't like my manners.  I don't like them myself.  They're pretty bad.  I grieve over them on long winter evenings.
Good general-purpose manners nowadays may be said to consist in knowing how much you can get away with. - Elizabeth Bowen quote.
Good general-purpose manners nowadays may be said to consist in knowing how much you can get away with.
Manners are of more importance than laws.  Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. - Edmund Burke quote.
Manners are of more importance than laws.  Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend.
We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners. - G. K. Chesterton quote.
We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

morals

Manners are love in a cool climate. - Quentin Crisp quote.
Manners are love in a cool climate.
Quentin Crisp Manners from Heaven: A Divine Guide to Good Behavior
Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.
Morals are three-quarters manners. - Felix Frankfurter quote.
Morals are three-quarters manners.

morals

Good manners spring from just one thing—kind impulses.
Good manners—the longer I live the more convinced I am of it—are a priceless insurance against failure and loneliness. And anyone can have them. - Elsa Maxwell quote.
Good manners—the longer I live the more convinced I am of it—are a priceless insurance against failure and loneliness. And anyone can have them.
Good manners are the technique of expressing consideration for the feelings of others.
Manners and morals are twin shoots from the same root.

morals

Spiritual strength and passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only provoke loathing. - Friedrich Nietzsche quote.
Spiritual strength and passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only provoke loathing.
Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste, and style mixed together so that you don't need any of those things. - P. J. O'Rourke quote.
Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste, and style mixed together so that you don't need any of those things.
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.
The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt. - Bertrand Russell quote.
The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt.
What once were vices, are now the manners of the day. - Seneca quote.
What once were vices, are now the manners of the day.

vice

Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way in the world. - Lord Chesterfield quote.
Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way in the world.
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse,  Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred in the company.
The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness. - Paul Theroux quote.
The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.
Paul Theroux The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally. - Oscar Wilde quote.
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

gentleman