Politeness Quotes - Page 2

• The test of good manners is to be patient with the bad ones.

  Solomon Ibn Gabirol

  Patience, Tests, Table Manners

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• Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.

  Honore de Balzac

  Soul, Literature, Virtue

  Honore de Balzac (1925). “The Physiology of Marriage”, p.66, Library of Alexandria

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• Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other.

  Samuel Johnson

  Want, Failing, Produce

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (2006). “A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.200, Penguin UK

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• Politeness smooths wrinkles.

  Joseph Joubert

  Wrinkles, Smooth

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• The truest politeness comes of sincerity.

  Samuel Smiles

  Sincerity, Truest

  Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.238

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• Politeness is the poison of collaboration.

  Edwin Land

  Teamwork, Decision, Collaboration

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• With hat in hand, one gets on in the world.

  Berthold Auerbach

  Hands, World, Hats

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• Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Benevolence, Wells, Has Beens

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• Funny how a little politeness can change people's minds.

  Sherman Alexie

  People, Mind, Littles

  Sherman Alexie (2013). “Flight: A Novel”, p.95, Open Road Media

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• There is no accomplishment so easy to acquire as politeness and none more profitable.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Accomplishment, Easy, Profitable

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• Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business.

  P. T. Barnum

  Business, Civility, Patronage

  P.T. Barnum (2016). “The Art of Money Getting”, p.60, BookRix

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• It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy.

  Khaleda Zia

  Patience, Practice, Impossible

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• There is a politeness of the heart; this is closely allied to love.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Stuart Blackie (1883). “The Wisdom of Goethe”, Edinburgh, W. Blackwood

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• Politeness is better than logic. You can often persuade when you cannot convince.

  Josh Billings

  Logic, Convince

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• The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Cost, Littles, Virtue

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• Gentleness is the great point to be obtained in the study of manners.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Study, Manners, Gentleness

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• He is the very pineapple of politeness.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Clever, Pineapples

  The Rivals act 3, sc. 3 (1775)

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• Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Art, Literature

  Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmuller (1980). “The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857”, p.220, Harvard University Press

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• That survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything. It's such a powerful force.

  Danny Boyle

  Powerful, Survival, Needs

  "127 Hours: Director Danny Boyle Says You’d Cut Your Hand Off, Too". Interview with Mary Anne Potts, adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com. November 4, 2010.

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• Politeness of the mind is to have delicate thoughts

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Mind, Delicate

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• Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.

  Henry Clay

  Thanksgiving, Thankful, Gratitude

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• Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.

  Samuel Johnson

  Self Esteem, Mean, Law

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.459

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• That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed. But it sometimes happens that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great merits and high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve with a ridiculous condescension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Distance, Character, Order

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.79

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• True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part of religious training.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Religious, Kindness, Men

  Henry Ward Beecher (1873). “The Original Plymouth Pulpit: Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn”

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• Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.

  Samuel Johnson

  Loss, Advantage, Inconvenience

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.239

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