Courtesy Quotes - Page 8

• Out of its squalor and human decay, its eruptions of butchery, India produced so many people of grace and beauty, ruled by elaborate courtesy. Producing too much life, it denied the value of life; yet it permitted a unique human development to so many. Nowhere were people so heightened, rounded and individualistic; nowhere did they offer themselves so fully and with such assurance. To know Indians was to take a delight in people as people; every encounter was an adventure. I did not want India to sink [out of my memory]; the mere thought was painful.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Memories, Adventure, Unique

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• Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

  Alexander Pope

  Book, Principles, Manners

  "The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: To which is Prefixed a Life of the Author".

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• Courtesy wins woman all as well. As valor may, but he that closes both is perfect.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Winning, Perfect, May

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2012). “Idylls of the King”, p.228, Courier Corporation

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

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Nature, Mind, Noble

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)”, p.1167, Delphi Classics

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• Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, where manners ne'er were preached.

  William Shakespeare

  Mountain, Caves, Fit

  William Shakespeare (2014). “Twelfth Night: Third Series”, p.303, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.

  William Shakespeare

  Writing, Men, Evil

  'Henry VIII' (1613) act 4, sc. 2, l. 45

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• The Islamic teachings have left great traditions for equitable and gentle dealings and behavior, and inspire people with nobility and tolerance. These are human teachings of the highest order and at the same time practicable. These teachings brought into existence a society in which hard-heartedness and collective oppression and injustice were the least as compared with all other societies preceding it....Islam is replete with gentleness, courtesy, and fraternity.

  H. G. Wells

  Teaching, Islamic, Order

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• My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned, not bought.

  Margaret Chase Smith

  Jobs, Dedication, People

  Margaret Chase Smith (1972). “Declaration of Conscience”

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• The only difference between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy to conceal the intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted.

  Osbert Sitwell

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  Osbert Sitwell (1950). “Noble essences: a book of characters”

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• Behind the fury, he was tired. He was tired of being hauled around and shoved into a little room. He was tired of trying for me and failing. And to have Minias know it, to be carted off under his leash…It was almost insulting. Maybe, if I gave Al a night of peace to lick his wounds and his pride, he would grant that same courtesy to me?

  Kim Harrison

  Tired, Pride, Night

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• I opted for the rear door, both as a courtesy and so she couldn't freak out about me showing up on her front doorstep for all of East Falls to see. Being the village pariah does make social calls most trying. -Paige

  Kelley Armstrong

  Fall, Doors, Trying

  Kelley Armstrong (2009). “Dime Store Magic: Women of the Otherworld”, p.255, Vintage Canada

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• Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors.

  Dean Koontz

  Vocabulary, Going Away, Trying

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• If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side’s battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and from the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Fighting, Self

  C. S. LEWIS (1961). “The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast”

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• The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, takes responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and avoids it. Without the hidden conspiracy of goodwill, society would not endure an hour.

  Kenneth Rexroth

  Responsibility, Men, Doe

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• A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Real, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.347, Library of America

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• Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

  E. B. White

  Life, Good Luck, Men

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• Obama has been perhaps the most partisan President since Truman. He hasn't learned to be civil - note his insulting speech to Paul Ryan, who did us the courtesy of scoring a budget. The president has to talk to Republicans when it comes to the debt ceiling. He has reached the debt ceiling before anyone expected.

  Grover Norquist

  Insulting, President, Ceilings

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• Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Leadership, Inspiration

  Martin D. Tullai, Abraham Lincoln (1998). “Speaking of Abraham Lincoln”

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

  Jean Cocteau

  Knowing, Audacity, Manners

  "Le Coq et l'Arlequin". Essay by Jean Cocteau, 1918.

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• Passion and courtesy are two polar opposite traits that serve to balance each other into a full-blooded whole. Without socialization, passion is a crude barbarian, and without passion, the elegant and polite are dead. Allow both passion and courtesy into your life in equal measure, and be complete.

  Vera Nazarian

  Passion, Opposites, Two

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• Fresh peach pie can lift a bullying reprobate into apologetic courtesy; I have watched it happen.

  Leif Enger

  Bullying, Pie, Peaches

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.291, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Whatever one of us asked the other to do - it was assumed the asker would weigh all the consequences - the other would do. Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it. We, in fact, defined courtesy as 'a cup of water in the night'. And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it.

  Sheldon Vanauken

  Night, Water, Fetch

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• [He was aware] of the value of the word of praise dropped at exactly the right moment; and he would have thought himself extremely stupid to withhold what cost him so little and was productive of such desirable results.

  Georgette Heyer

  Stupid, Cost, Littles

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• Each smallest act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time --affecting lives unknown to the one who’s generous spirit, was the source of this good echo. Because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage, years later, and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil.

  Dean Koontz

  Courage, Kindness, Distance

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• Tzu Chang asked Confucius about jen. Confucius said, "If you can practice these five things with all the people, you can be called jen." Tzu Chang asked what they were. Confucius said, "Courtesy, generosity, honesty, persistence, and kindness. If you are courteous, you will not be disrespected; if you are generous, you will gain everything. If you are honest, people will rely on you. If you are persistent you will get results. If you are kind, you can employ people.

  Confucius

  Kindness, Honesty, Persistence

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