#Manners Quotes

“Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?”

“Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.”

“Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.”

“Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.”

“There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers.”

“There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art.”

“When a gentlemen is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths.”

“The whole of heraldry and of chivalry is in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your name with all the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add.”

“Manners are the happy ways of doing things.”

“There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual.”

“There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things.”

“Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of Our human generation you shall find.”

“How much we forgive to those who yield us the rare spectacle of heroic manners! We will pardon them the want of books, or arts, and even of gentler virtues. How tenaciously we remember them!”

“A gentleman is a man who is only rude when he intends to be.”

“Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, where manners ne'er were preached.”

“A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene.”

“Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily.”

“The maxim of courts is that manner is power.”

“As youngsters, my mother taught her children that while we might not be the smartest people around, we could be courteous, polite and considerate of others.”

“The first point of courtesy must always be truth.”

“Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.”

“Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage.”

“When the man is at home, his standing in society is well known and quietly taken; but when he is abroad, it is problematical, and is dependent on the success of his manners.”

“Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage, they form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which give such a depth to the morning meadows.”

“Let a man behave in his own house as a guest.”

“I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculptureand painting have an effect to teach us manners, and abolish hurry.”

“We sometimes meet an original gentleman, who, if manners had not existed, would have invented them.”

“It is always a practical difficulty with clubs to regulate the laws of election so as to exclude peremptorily every social nuisance. Nobody wishes bad manners. We must have loyalty and character.”

“Civilization has taught us to eat with a fork, but even now if nobody is around we use our fingers.”

“To beguile the time, look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue.”

“Each religious sect has its own physiognomy. The Methodists have acquired a face; the Quakers, a face; the nuns, a face. An Englishman will pick out a dissenter by his manners.”

“Manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth.”

“Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.”

“To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.”

“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.”

“A yawn may not be polite, but at least it is an honest opinion.”

“Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.”

“Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.”

“A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world.”

“Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.”

“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.”

“There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. 'Tis good to give a stranger a meal, or a night's lodging. 'Tis better to be hospitable to his good meaning and thought, and give courage to a companion. We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.”

“The basis of good manners is self-reliance.”

“Politeness [is] a sign of dignity, not subservience.”

“Young people nowadays love luxury; they have bad manners and contempt for authority. They show disrespect for old people... contradict their parents, talk constantly in front of company, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

“The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure.”

“Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden." "But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins!" "I said it was perfectly heartless of YOU under the circumstances. That is a very different thing." "That may be, but the muffins are the same!”

“The basis of good manners is self-reliance. Necessity is the law of all who are not self-possessed.”

“A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't.”