Judith Martin Quotes - Page 2

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• Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without a comment is a wonderful social grace ... Children who have the habit of constantly correcting should be stopped before they grow up to drive spouses and everyone else crazy by interrupting stories to say, 'No, dear -- it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.

  Judith Martin

  Children, Growing Up, Crazy

  21 Copy quote

• Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.

  Judith Martin

  Honesty, Smart, Ducks

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

  4 Copy quote

• You should resolve not to seek public approval of your private business, when you are not also prepared to accept public disapproval.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Approval, Accepting

  6 Copy quote

• There is nothing like a good friend to help you out when you are not in trouble.

  Judith Martin

  Friends, Good Friend, Helping

  Judith Martin (1990). “Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium”, p.115, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Approval, Demand

  5 Copy quote

• It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Humility, Trials

  5 Copy quote

• The underlying principles of manners- respect, fairness, and congeniality.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Principles, Fairness

  8 Copy quote

• Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.

  Judith Martin

  Law, People, Missing

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

  5 Copy quote

• Manners require showing consideration of all human beings, not just the ones to whom one is close.

  Judith Martin

  Consideration, Manners, Humans

  8 Copy quote

• We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility.

  Judith Martin

  Jobs, Responsibility, Men

  9 Copy quote

• The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Rude, Way

  5 Copy quote

• When you're in love, you put up with things that, when you're out of love you cite.

  Judith Martin

  Positive, Love You, Citing

  6 Copy quote

• everyone old enough to have a secret is entitled to have some place to keep it.

  Judith Martin

  Secret, Enough, Entitled

  Judith Martin (2002). “Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children”, p.161, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.

  Judith Martin

  Art, Healing, Epidemics

  Judith Martin (1986). “Style and substance: a comedy of manners”, Scribner

  4 Copy quote

• If you put together all the ingredients that naturally attract children - sex, violence, revenge, spectacle and vigorous noise - what you have is grand opera.

  Judith Martin

  Sex, Children, Revenge

  "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior". Book by Judith Martin, 1982.

  9 Copy quote

• There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Rude, Response

  4 Copy quote

• the obligation to express gratitude deepens with procrastination. The longer you wait, the more effusive must be the thanks.

  Judith Martin

  Gratitude, Procrastination, Waiting

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

  4 Copy quote

• When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.

  Judith Martin

  Criticism, Firsts, Flaws

  19 Copy quote

• I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.

  Judith Martin

  Principles, Different, Culture

  6 Copy quote

• Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons.

  Judith Martin

  People, Needs, Machines

  7 Copy quote

• People think, mistakenly, that etiquette means you have to suppress your differences. On the contray, etiquette is what enables you to deal with them; it gives you a set of rules.

  Judith Martin

  Mean, Thinking, Differences

  "Polite Company". Interview with Hara Estroff Marano, www.psychologytoday.com. March 1, 1998.

  4 Copy quote

• The idea that people can behave naturally, without resorting to an artificial code tacitly agreed upon by their society, is as silly as the idea that they can communicate by a spoken language without commonly accepted semantic and grammatical rules.

  Judith Martin

  Silly, Ideas, People

  Judith Martin (1996). “Common courtesy: in which Miss Manners solves the problem that baffled Mr. Jefferson”

  5 Copy quote

• 'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty.

  Judith Martin

  Honesty, Talking, Names

  98 Copy quote

• It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.

  Judith Martin

  Women, Discovery, Order

  11 Copy quote

• The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it's very cumbersome to switch to a different family.

  Judith Martin

  Family, Different, World

  11 Copy quote

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