Quotes About Etiquette

It's been my experience that people who treat others as inferiors are really only covering up their own lack of class.

While Bitty's tone was pleasantly concerned, it held that unmistakable Southern belle cattiness that wouldn't escape the attention of anyone familiar with polite social warfare. Three women within hearing stepped back a pace, but made no pretense that they weren't listening to every word. After all, this is the kind of show that makes the tiresome rules of etiquette bearable.

As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm.

You send a girl to school in order to make friends - the right sort.

And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her shoes and her gloves.

Directly anything happens—it may be a marriage, or a birth, or a death—on the whole they prefer it to be a death—every one wants to see you. They insist upon seeing you. They've got nothing to say; they don't care a rap for you; but you've got to go to lunch or to tea or to dinner, and if you don't you're damned. It's the smell of blood, she continued; I don't blame 'em; only they shan't have mind if I know it!

As for himself, when he went to go to a party, as one was sometimes obliged to, from a wish not to give offence, he walked into the middle of the room, said 'Ha! Ha!' as loud as ever he could, considered he had done his duty, and went home.

Each of the ladies, being after the fashion of their sex, highly trained in promoting men's talk without listening to it, could think—about the education of children, about the use of fog sirens in an opera—without betraying herself. Only it struck Helen that Rachel was perhaps too still for a hostess, and that she might have done something with her hands.

You're not going to sniff my ass, are you? Like a dog?

Who grins in official circumstances?

You have to watch your language. People will think you have no fucking class

The rich, like well brought up children, are meant to be seen, not heard.

Never hire anyone who starts a sentence with the word "Dude!" and never work for a guy who doesn't know the difference between mute and moot

When I'm in social situations I always hold onto my glass. It makes me feel comfortable and secure, and I don't have to shake hands

She was breaking the rules! She wasn't following the rules of society ... The unwritten rules that we have as we go about our day. Like at night, you tiptoe, that's an unwritten rule, you tiptoe, so you don't wake people up, there's no sign 'TIPTOE', you just have to be smart enough and considerate enough to do it.

I hate rude behavior in a man,' he explained in his quiet, unassuming drawl. 'I won't tolerate it.' He politely tipped his hat, and rode away.

My God, look at the words people use today. They use profanity like it's nothing. Christ almighty.

The most elementary of good manners . . . at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.

Courteous men learn courtesy from the discourteous.

Courteous people learn courtesy from the discourteous

the mother did something that neither Tim's parents, WASPy sticklers for table manners, nor my parents, WASPy guilty eaters, would ever have done: she took more artichokes off her plate with her fingers and insisted I eat them, too. I did, to her relish, and mine.

He turned out the lamp and left the room, his body in agony. Sometimes, it was absolute hell to be a gentleman.

Working for a handsome man is fraught with difficulties. To those girl-bachelors so employed, I recommend an unflappable temperament, an unbreakable heart, and plenty of handkerchiefs.

He tilted her face upward as if he meant to kiss her. Shocked, Maria resisted, glancing toward the people at the table, some of them are smiling, some disapproving, some thoroughly appalled. She looked back at him, doubtful. "Does a gentleman kiss a woman in front of other people?" He tilted her head back. "This one does," he said and captured her lips with his.