Quotes About Etiquette

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

I'm being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it's not polite. There!

My dear, when you are as old as I, they won't call you Jane, either. Old age is dreadfully formal. It's always 'Mrs. ' Young People don't like to call you 'Helen. ' It seems much too flip.

For God's sake, what are you doing?" shouted Garrett, rattling about. "I'm being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it's not polite.

DopuÅ¡tím se malé ironie. A není sluÅ¡né nÄ›koho pÃ…â"¢eruÅ¡ovat, zrovna když se dopouÅ¡tí malé ironie. No tak!

The Coles were very respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit them.

is always better to bow too low than not bow low enough.

If you use slang use the refined kind and use it like a gentleman, that it will not hurt or give offense to any one. Cardinal Newman defined a gentleman as he who never inflicts pain. Be a gentleman in your slang—never inflict pain.

When writing a letter the street laborer should bear in mind that only the letter of a street-laborer is expected from him, no matter to whom his communication may be addressed and that neither the grammar nor the diction of a Chesterfield or Gladstone is looked for in his language.

Consider the contrast between the well-bred

They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.

a lifelong disciple of Lord Chesterfield's maxim that a gentleman was free to do anything he pleased as long as he did it with style.

When Jefferson visited Adams in England in the spring of 1786, the two former revolutionaries were presented at court and George III ostentatiously turned his back on them both. Neither man ever forgot the insult or the friend standing next to him when it happened.

Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open.

women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed; there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.

Nowadays, we never allow ourselves the convenience of being temporarily unavailable, even to strangers. With telephone and beeper, people subject themselves to being instantly accessible to everyone at all times, and it is the person who refuses to be on call, rather than the importunate caller, who is considered rude.

We are all born rude. No infant has ever appeared yet with the grace to understand how inconsiderate it is to disturb others in the middle of the night.

One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.

It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one's marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can't afford to do anyway are vulgar.

A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.

We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.

Eating grapes with a knife and fork is not what one would call refined. It is what one would call ludicrous.

The rationale that etiquette should be eschewed because it fosters inequality does not ring true in a society that openly admits to a feverish interest in the comparative status-conveying qualities of sneakers. Manners are available to all, for free.