Quotes About Manners

Diplomacy is to do and say, the nastiest thing in the nicest way.

I always ask at once, 'Do you drink?' and if she says 'No,' I bow politely and say I am sorry but I fear she will not suit. All good cooks drink.

Careful of the fingers you step on while you are going up the ladder. They may be attached to the asses you have to kiss on the way down!

Being considerate of others will take you further in life than a college degree.

Always use tasteful words - you may have to eat them.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard

Be polite even to those who are rude to you, not because they are, but because of you are.

Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.

M. de Charlus and M. de Sidonia had each of them immediately detected the other's vice, which was in both cases that of soliloquising in society, to the extent of not being able to stand any interruption. Having decided at once that, in the words of a famous sonnet, there was 'no help,' they had made up their minds not to be silent but each to go on talking without any regard to what the other might say.

Which was for me the true friend—Mme de Montmorency, so happy to ruffle my feelings and always so willing to oblige, or Mme de Guermantes, distressed at the least offense toward me and incapable of the least effort to be helpful?

That fellow Argencourt is well born but ill bred, a worse-than-second-rate diplomat, a loathsome husband and a womanizer, a double-faced stage character. He's one of those men who are incapable of understanding but perfectly capable of destroying the high things in life.

it was the bridle which, so as to avoid all appearance of egotism, she herself used to curb the gratification which her friend was attempting to procure for her.

People praise to us the sweetness, the purity of a virgin. But quite soon one feels that something spicier would be more appealing and one advises her to be bolder in her manners. In herself, was she rather one than the other? Perhaps not, but capable of taking on so many different forms in the rushing current of life.

It was the time when well-bred people observed the rule of affability and what was called the rule of the three adjectives.

to our paying too much attention to the aspect, the manners of what a person is not but would like to be, in forming our first impression of that person. To the outward appearance affectation, imitation, the longing to be admired, whether by the good or by the wicked, add misleading similarities of speech and gesture.

Eating without conversation is only stoking.

Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the colour and complexion of thought.

In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry.

I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.

Sir,"she said,"you are no gentleman!" An apt observation,"he answered airily."And, you, Miss, are no lady.

Yet table manners have a great deal to recommend them as a subject for analysis. To begin with, since they are each culture's own way to encourage and manage the sharing of food, they are essential for the foundation and survival of every human society without exception. Once we recognize this fact, we may agree that explaining eating rituals is a serious and desirable enterprise.

Behind every rule of table etiquette lurks the determination of each person present to be a diner, not a dish. It is one of the chief roles of etiquette to keep the lid on the violence which the meal being eaten presupposes.

Friends and good manners will carry you where money won't go.

So I grew. And as I grew I learned that in the world beyond family and family friends, your mistakes—bad manners, poor taste, an excess of high spirits—could put you, your parents, and your people at risk.