Quotes About Formality

Respectability is the dickey on the bosom of civilization.

The entire civil service is like a fortress, made of papers, forms and red tape.

The world of high-stakes international diplomacy can be rough and tumble, but it's more often than not a procession of suits and summits, protocol sessions and photo ops.

Even if I had a tuxedo I wouldn't wear it to school.

She smiled with a kind of abashed formality, embarrassed by revelation.

Make payment a weekly ritual. Bring some formality to the process by setting a date and time for when you will review the work from the past week and make the payment. Maybe it's Saturday morning when you are all around.

politeness without warmth

Air that had not been breathed once and again! air that had not been spoken into words of falsehood, formality, and error, like all the air of the dusky city!

despite the green eyeshade and the garters on the sleeves.

How many sandwiches did you eat at some thing like this? There were nearly twenty more on the trays. Did you leave some for propriety sake? She hadn't touched them. Wait, were they decorative?

Shouldn't you be asking for my name first?

We follow protocol in our entire lives, nothing doesn't follow protocol

As far as I'm concerned, whom is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.' CALVIN TRILLIN

I dislike your formality."...."Your formality keeps us at arms length when I want not even a hairbreadths between us.

All official letters are written in such a language that the oracles of Delphi sound as examples of clear, outspoken, straightforward statements compared with them.

It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.

I do not stand on protocol. If you just call me Excellency, it will be okay.

A diplomat these days is nothing but a head waiter who is allowed to sit down occasionally.

Feldvebel samo raširi ruke, sleže ramenima, stište usne i sklopi o?i, tako da mu lice dobi neki lukav i u?tiv izraz, nepomi?an, slep, gluh, kakav ljudi mogu da steknu samo dugogodišnjim radom u drevnim i trulim administracijama, u kojima se diskrecija odavno izrodila u bezdušnost, a poslušnost u kukavi?luk. List bele, neispisane hartije još je re?it prema nemom oprezu toga lica.

Please, if you would, the butler said, no throwing the linens. Peaches, anyone? -Fritz

A wedding invitation is a gift subpoena.

Every couple of seconds out here they're honoring somebody. You've got to get dressed, go in and sit down. Invariably somebody makes a speech.

I mean, Princess Margaret had me officially informed by the master of the household that she wouldn't speak to me until I changed my religion. That was not personal. We'd only met for five minutes. That was historical. She never spoke to me in 25 years. We were always very polite to one another, but we didn't speak.

My marriage license reads, 'To whom it may concern,'