Quotes About Manners

Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.

Superior people never make long visits.

I knew that I was supposed to respond with some kind of mannered phrase that ended with hail Satan, but I couldn't bring myself to do so. It seemed too empty and ritualistic, like wearing a uniform in a Christian school.

Kindly intentioned, but not considerate.

Again it was like the English he so much admired, those people who could be so subtly rude that you basked in their insults for days before you realized they had mortally wounded you.

It was understood, it was mere good manners, to proclaim that you were in his debt and that he had the right to call upon you at any time to redeem your debt by some small service. Now

Ortega y Gasset: «La claridad es la cortesía del filósofo».

La mujer sonreía teatralmente y se había lanzado a hablar sin pausas. En el chisporroteo de palabras, las formulas de cortesía que Alberto había escuchado en su infancia aparecían como en caricatura, condimentadas con adjetivos lujosos y gratuitos, y a ratos comprendía que lo trataban de señor y de don y lo interrogaban sin esperar su respuesta. Se halló envuelto en una costra verbal, en un laberinto sonoro.

Gentlemen never get the blame in such circumstances. You should know that.

Aubrey Davenport was dressed like a fop, had the manners of a fop, and appeared to have the intelligence of a potato.

You must base everything on these three rules: behave well, speak well, act well.

People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say, 'I don't like you,' unless that person has been horrible to you.

La gente dice que siempre hay que decir la verdad. Pero no lo dicen en serio porque no se te permite decirle a los viejos que son viejos y no se te permite decirle a la gente que huele raro o a un adulto que se ha tirado un pedo.

Buen chico. Y yo dije: —Gracias por la cena —porque eso es ser educado.

Bueno, ¿cómo te va, capitán? Y yo dije: —Me va muy bien, gracias —que es lo que se supone que tienes que decir.

It's very nice of you to come and say hello." I didn't reply to this either because Mrs. Alexander was doing what is called chatting, where people say things to each other which aren't questions and answers and aren't connected.

People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say "I don't like you" unless that person has been horrible to you.

It takes just about the same amount of time to be a nice guy as it does to be a jerk.

Her courtesy, her compliance, and especially her silence dated from a time otherwise gone.

There are don'ts: You don't use anything but your fingers. You definitely don't use soy sauce or additional wasabi. It comes the way he says it should be. That's the way you eat it.

There could be no doubt, so I was finally forced to decide, that the longer one dealt with them, the more one developed the habit of treating generals like members of the opposite sex; specifically, like ladies no longer young, who therefore deserve extra courtesy and attention; indeed, whose every whim must be given thought.

I wonder whether what we call politeness isn't just weakness

Whereas most civilized people she knew regarded conversation as a form of tennis- you put a few questions over the net, then your opponent would lob a few back- Mrs Land was strictly in the business of receiving rather than serving.

Miss Proudie was not quite so civil. Had Mr. Robarts been still unmarried, she also could have smiled sweetly; but she had been exercising smiles on clergymen too long to waste them now on a married parish parson.