Manners Quotes - Page 29

• Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Men, Sight, Important

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2009). “Democracy in America: Volumes I & II”, p.1164, The Floating Press

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• High rank and soft manners may not always belong to a true heart.

  Anthony Trollope

  Heart, May, True Heart

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Claverings”, p.298, Booklassic

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• We're living in what I like to call the 'Thank You Economy,' because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way - and do it authentically - are going to have a prayer of competing.

  Gary Vaynerchuk

  Thank You, Prayer, Educational

  Gary Vaynerchuk (2011). “The Thank You Economy (Enhanced Edition)”, p.27, Harper Collins

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• I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Thinking, Tables, Table Manners

  Evelyn Waugh (1983). “The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh”, Methuen

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• Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Luck, Needs, Get Away

  In Observer 15 Apr. 1962

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• Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

  Simone Weil

  Equality, Degrees, Needs

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.224, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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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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• The ministers of Christ should possess refinement. All uncouth manners, attitudes and gestures should be discarded, and they should encourage in themselves humble dignity of bearing.

  Ellen G. White

  Attitude, Humble, Gestures

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• To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.

  Walt Whitman

  Real, Artist, Humanity

  Walt Whitman, Floyd Stovall (2007). “Prose Works 1892, Volume II: Collect and Other Prose”, p.516, NYU Press

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• 

  It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

  Oscar Wilde

  People, Luck, Enemy

  LadyWindermere's Fan act 1 (1892)

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• She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say 'when.'

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Women, Clothes, Jeeves

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Time, Female, Revolution

  Mary Wollstonecraft, Janet Todd (2008). “A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution”, p.113, Oxford University Press

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• Wearing the correct dress for any occasion is a matter of good manners.

  Loretta Young

  Dresses, Matter, Occasions

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• I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a good man; lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and a proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I faced myself that day with the non-plused apprehension of someone who has come across a vampire and has no crucifix at hand.

  Joan Didion

  Children, Men, Keys

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Sep 10, 2011

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• From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

  Jane Austen

  Selfish, Men, Feelings

  Jane Austen (1819). “Pride and Prejudice: A Novel”, p.133

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• I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.

  Jane Austen

  Prejudice, Opinion, Persons

  Jane Austen, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Patricia Ann Meyer Spacks (2010). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.400, Harvard University Press

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• Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

  Elvis Costello

  Good Manners, Breaths, Bad Breath

  Elvis Costello (2015). “Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink”, p.53, Penguin

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• What we need to question is bricks, concrete, glass, our table manners, our utensils, our tools, the way we spend our time, our rhythms. To question that which seems to have ceased forever to astonish us. We live, true, we breathe, true; we walk, we go downstairs, we sit at a table in order to eat, we lie down on a bed on order to sleep. How? Where? When? Why? Describe your street. Describe another. Compare.

  Georges Perec

  Lying, Sleep, Glasses

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• Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

  Oscar Wilde

  Spheres, Different, Importance Of Being Earnest

  Oscar Wilde (1994). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.47, Heinemann

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• A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Loss, Dying, Culture

  Robert A. Heinlein (1982). “Friday”

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• You have nice manners for a thief and a liar," said the dragon.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Nice, Liars, Dragons

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.89, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness ... Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy.

  Jane Austen

  Wish, Shy, Inferiority

  Jane Austen (2005). “Jane Austen: 8 Books in 1”, p.26, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• Now I felt the long-forgotten urgency of lovemaking, when it seems one's human selves leave, to be replaced by hungry beasts bolting their food. Gone are the civilized beings who talk of manners and journeys and letters; in their places are two bodies straining to give birth to a burst of inhuman pleasure followed by a great, floating nothingness. An explosion of life followed by death - in this we live, and in this we foreshadow our own sweet deaths.

  Margaret George

  Sweet, Journey, Self

  Margaret George (2011). “The Memoirs of Cleopatra”, p.262, Pan Macmillan

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• A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.

  Samuel Adams

  Patriotic, America, People

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1778-1802”

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• In his opinion, working was vastly overrated. Particularly as a way to build character, for everyone who engaged in it was far too snappish and fussy, and seemed to have no manners at all.

  Hilari Bell

  Attitude, Character, Way

  Hilari Bell (2009). “Crown of Earth”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

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