Formality Quotes

• You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation.

  Octave Mirbeau

  Fashion, Anger, Thinking

  Octave Mirbeau (1989). “The Torture Garden”, Re-Search Publications

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• The sweetness of life lies in dispensing with formalities.

  Muhammad Ali

  Lying, Sweetness Of Life, Familiarity

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• You got to set your mind right and the rest will come to you naturally. No restrictions, no hang-ups, no stupid rules, no formalities, no forbidden fruit - just everyone getting and giving as much as he and she can.

  Ray Charles

  Stupid, Generosity, Giving

  Ray Charles, David Ritz (2004). “Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story”, p.169, Da Capo Press

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• Documentation is not understanding, process is not discipline, formality is not skill.

  Jim Highsmith

  Skills, Discipline, Understanding

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• In statesmanship get formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

  Mark Twain

  Mind, Ethics And Morals, Morality

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.456, Courier Corporation

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• We've become much more casual and much more relaxed in social interactions, where there was a formality and maybe a kind of respect at that time that doesn't exist now.

  Radha Mitchell

  Kind, Social, Casual

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• Miracles happen. But prayer is needed! Prayer that is courageous, struggling and persevering, not prayer that is a mere formality.

  Pope Francis

  Christian, Prayer, Struggle

  Pope Francis (2015). “The Spirit of St Francis: Inspiring Words on Faith, Love and Creation”, p.72, SPCK

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• Treat your business relationships like friendships (or potential friendships). Formality puts up walls, and walls don't foster good business relationships. No one is loyal to a wall... except the one in China.

  Steve Pavlina

  Wall, Business, Loyal

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• It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.

  Blaise Pascal

  Arrogant, Ceremony, Submit

  Blaise Pascal (1966). “Pascal Pensées”, Penguin Classics

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• Formality is sufficiently revenged upon the world for being so unreasonably laughed at; it is destroyed, it is true, but it hath the spiteful satisfaction of seeing everything destroyed with it.

  E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

  World, Satisfaction, Spiteful

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• Foolish, whenever you take the meanness and formality of that thing you do, instead of converting it into the obedient spiracle ofyour character and aims.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Character, Foolish

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1316, Delphi Classics

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• The religion is a formality. What matters is you show respect to God and your faith in God.

  Sean Stone

  What Matters, Faith In God, Show Respect

  "EXCLUSIVE: Sean Stone Makes A Frightening Directorial Debut with ‘Greystone Park’". Interview with Angela Dawson, frontrowfeatures.com. October 17, 2012.

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• Grilling takes the formality out of entertaining. Everyone wants to get involved.

  Bobby Flay

  Want, Grilling, Get Involved

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• I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality to be very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk.

  Werner Herzog

  Potato Chips, Potatoes, Restaurants

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• Mozart combined high formality and playfulness that delights as no other composition in any other medium does.

  Roy Blount, Jr.

  Doe, Delight, Mediums

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• The reason to preserve wilderness is that we need it. We need wilderness of all kinds, large and small, public and private. Wee need to go now and again into places where our work is disallowed, where our hopes and plans have no standing. We need to come into the presence of the unqualified and mysterious formality of Creation.

  Wendell Berry

  Needs, Unqualified, Mysterious

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• I think that helps because there has been no formality of friendship, the politeness of friendship, so we can just work directly on the work that's ahead of us [with Tom Hardey].

  Steven Knight

  Thinking, Helping, Politeness

  Source: deadline.com

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• Loneliness is a hard thing to handle. I feel it, sometimes. When I do, I want it to end. Sometimes, when you're near someone, when you touch them on some level that is deeper than the uselessly structured formality of casual civilized interaction, there's a sense of satisfaction in it. Or at least, there is for me. It doesn't have to be someone particularly nice. You don't have to like them. You don't even have to want to work with them. You might even want to punch them in the nose. Sometimes just making that connection is its own experience, its own reward.

  Jim Butcher

  Nice, Loneliness, Connections

  Jim Butcher (2008). “White Night: A Novel of the Dresden Files”, p.269, Penguin

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• Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together.

  Thomas Paine

  Men, Order, Community

  Thomas Paine (2015). “The Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies”, p.131, Ravenio Books

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• Formality Thus the absence of all mention of particular things or properties in logic or pure mathematics is a necessary result of the fact that this study is, as we say, "purely formal".

  Bertrand Russell

  Facts, Logic, Study

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• We are all members of the same great family ... On social occasions the formality of strictly military occasions should be relaxed, and a spirit of friendliness and goodwill should prevail.

  John A. Lejeune

  Military, Marine, Army

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• My father always has been attractive because of his energy, warmth, charm, and talent for finding some connection with people from all cultures and walks of life. He rarely observed social formalities and niceties - something he has passed on to his boys.

  Ezekiel Emanuel

  Father, Boys, People

  Ezekiel J. Emanuel (2013). “Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family”, p.42, Halban Publishers

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• I am as fond of colorful language as anyone, but I try not to inflict it upon strangers. I suspect many people sense they should have better manners, and need only a nudge. In high school, I was addressed for the first time in my life as "Mister Ebert" by Stanley Hynes, an English teacher, and his formality transformed his classroom into a place where a certain courtliness prevailed.

  Roger Ebert

  Life, Teacher, School

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• Where are these rational practices to be taught and acquired? Not within the four walls of a bare building, in which formality predominates... But in the nursery, play-ground, fields, gardens, workshops, manufactures, museums and class-rooms. ...The facts collected from all these sources will be concentrated, explained, discussed, made obvious to all, and shown in their direct application to practice in all the business of life.

  Robert Owen

  Wall, Garden, Class

  "The Book of the New Moral World, Vol. 3". Book by Robert Owen, 1836-1844.

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• I am actually extremely casual in certain environments. But one of the reasons I like living in London, I like the formality of it, as compared to the formality of America - or informality. I like putting on a suit. I like putting on a tie.

  Tom Ford

  America, Ties, London

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