Polite Quotes - Page 8

• Nobody ever invented a polite word for a killing yet.

  Thelma Ritter

  Killing, Rear Window

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• My dad was a particularly polite kind of guy, very courteous. So when we got on a bus, he would always encourage me and my younger brother to get up and offer our seat to an old lady. I grew up kind of liking that, thinking, y'know, that's a nice thing, that's a courtesy.

  Paul McCartney

  Brother, Dad, Nice

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I wish my nose was smaller and that I was a little taller. I also had this perennial pimple problem, so I felt people were just being polite when they said I was beautiful.

  Madhuri Dixit

  Beautiful, People, Wish

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• I'm brash and abrasive but that's because I've noticed when people are nice and polite they never get anywhere.

  Mahathir Mohamad

  Nice, People, Brash

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• I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low.

  Thomas Huxley

  Pigeons, Shooting, Rats

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Cyril Bibby (1971). “T. H. Huxley on Education”, p.120, Cambridge University Press

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• Not to perceive the little weaknesses and the idle but innocent affectations of the company may be allowable as a sort of polite duty. The company will be pleased with you if you do, and most probably will not be reformed by you if you do not.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Weakness, May, Littles

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• Even the street, the sunshine, the very air had a special Sunday quality. We walked differently on Sundays, with greater propriety and stateliness. Greetings were more formal, more subdued, voices more meticulously polite. Everything was so smooth, bland, polished. And genuinely so, because this was Sunday. In church the rustling and the stillness were alike pervaded with the knowledge that all was for the best. Propriety ruled the universe. God was in His Heaven, and we were in our Sunday clothes.

  Rose Wilder Lane

  Sunshine, Sunday, Air

  "Old Home Town". Book by Rose Wilder Lane, 1935.

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• We pretend that no one's a racist anymore, but it's easier to talk about pornography in polite company than racial integration

  Bob Herbert

  Racist, Easier, Integration

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• An insolent reply from a polite person is a bad sign.

  Hippocrates

  Persons, Insolent

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• [Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.

  Richard Francis Burton

  Wise, Witty, Art

  Richard Francis Burton, John Payne, Andrew Lang, Jonathan Scott (2015). “One Thousand and One Nights - Complete Arabian Nights Collection (Delphi Classics)”, p.4187, Delphi Classics

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• I think that Canadians have an incredible reverence for authority and regard for authority, and I think one of the healthy ways that it's challenged is through questioning it, through the polite hostility of comedy.

  Lorne Michaels

  Thinking, Healthy, Way

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• I talk to my kids about my mothers energy and how she would have loved them. I talk about how kind and polite my father was. So that they have some kind of remembrance that even though my parents died from their addictions and so that they know they were genuine in how they were.

  Lemon Andersen

  Mother, Father, Kids

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• Death is never polite, even when we expect it.

  Tiny Tim

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• Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Atheism, Pantheism, Form

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• A modest ring at the bell at length allayed her fears, and Miss Benton, hurrying into her own room and shutting herself up, in order that she might preserve that appearance of being taken by surprise which is so essential to the polite reception of visitors, awaited their coming with a smiling countenance.

  Charles Dickens

  Funny, Humorous, Taken

  CHARLES DICKENS (1871). “THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK, AND SKETCHES BY "BOZ".”, p.218

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• In order for us [people] to progress, we need brilliance and brilliance isn't fair and it's not polite and we can't grow it. It happens. Genius happens and it doesn't always happen in a zip code where we can access it. Therefore, we kind of need [Internet] not to keep tabs on everybody but we need to give them access to everybody else.

  Augusten Burroughs

  Order, People, Giving

  Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

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• The hundred-point man is one who is true to every trust; who keeps his word; who is loyal to the firm that employs him; who does not listen for insults nor look for slights; who carries a civil tongue in his head; who is polite to strangers without being fresh; who is considerate toward servants; who is moderate in his eating and drinking; who is willing to learn; who is cautious and yet courageous.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Trust, Drinking, Men

  Elbert Hubbard (1908). “Health & Wealth”

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• How foolish to think that one can ever slam the door in the face of age. Much wiser to be polite and gracious and ask him to lunch in advance.

  Noel Coward

  Thinking, Doors, Lunch

  Noel Coward (2008). “The Letters of Noel Coward”, p.326, Vintage

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• I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.

  W. H. Auden

  Thinking, Civilization, Firsts

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• Suicide is a whispered word, inappropriate for polite company. Family and friends often pretend they do not hear the word's dread sound even when it is uttered. For suicide is a taboo subject that stigmatizes not only the victim but the survivors as well.

  Earl A Grollman

  Suicide, Family And Friends, Sound

  Earl A. Grollman (1988). “Suicide: Prevention, Intervention, Postvention”, p.1, Beacon Press

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• I am terribly British. Especially in the eyes of Americans. I drink several gallons of tea a day, I'm often excessively polite and it's only through many years of expensive and painful dental work that I don't have bad teeth.

  Rhianna Pratchett

  Eye, Years, Dental Work

  Source: www.thatvideogameblog.com

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• Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.

  John Adams

  Religious, Mean, Would Be

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.254

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• Cost recovery is the polite way of saying, make families pay to educate their children.

  Susan George

  Education, Children, Recovery

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• A dearth of words a woman need not fear; But 'tis a task indeed to learn to hear: In that the skill of conversation lies; That shows and makes you both polite and wise.

  Edward Young

  Wise, Lying, Skills

  John Milton, Edward Young, Thomas Gray, James Beattie, William Collins (1836). “The Poetical Works of Milton, Young, Gray, Beattie, and Collins”

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• Polite diseases make some idiots vain, Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.

  Edward Young

  Disease, Idiot, Vain

  Edward Young, Thomas Park (1808). “The Poetical Works of Edward Young: In Four Volumes. Collated with the Best Editions:”, p.107

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