quotations about manners
Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady.
YUKTESWAR GIRI
Autobiography of a Yogi
Manners are incidental to moral choices because they are benign expressions of character, and irrelevant to the particulars of a given choice. The fact that manners so readily dissociate from character suggests that, as far as virtue is concerned, they are not ingredients but accoutrements.
JASON W. BROWN
Process and the Authentic Life
Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value; but it will never be worn, nor shine, if it is not polished.
PHILIP STANHOPE
letter to his son, July 1, 1748
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.
GEORGETTE HEYER
April Lady
Manners aim to facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to energize. They aid our dealing and conversation, as a railway aids traveling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Manners", Essays
We ought to esteem him alone an agreeable and good-natured man, who, in his daily intercourse with others, behaves in such a manner as friends usually behave to each other. For as a person of that rustic character appears, wherever he comes, like a mere stranger: so, on the contrary, a polite man, wherever he goes, seems as easy as if he were amongst his intimate friends and acquaintance.
GIOVANNI DELLA CASA
Galateo: Or, A Treatise on Politeness and Delicacy of Manners
Manners are not the be-all and end-all of human relationships, but they are certainly a good lubricant, a social WD40.
PAUL KROPP
I'll Be the Parent, You Be the Child
Good manners set off a lowly garb.
PLAUTUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The point that should be stressed here is that manners are not a coerced and external set of rules: manners are internalized rules, and the process of internalization creates a new kind of subject.
TED OWNBY
Manners and Southern History
As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak understandings; so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were contrived.
JONATHAN SWIFT
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners, living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Man
Manners are laws in their infancy.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
In our manners, tranquility is the supreme power.
MME. DE MAINTENON
attributed, Day's Collacon
For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, believes that there is a ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment, and speak or abstain, to take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way: and that strong will is always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Manners", Essays
Truth, justice, and reason lose all their force and all their lustre when they are not accompanied with agreeable manners.
J. THOMSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.
EDMUND BURKE
Letters On a Regicide Peace
Manners are necessary because, as a rule, there is a pretense; when our good opinion of others is genuine, manners look after themselves.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mortals and Others
A robot could be programmed to show good manners. A pleasant demeanor can disguise evil, courtesy can be a window of opportunism, gracious conduct may conceal disdain.
JASON W. BROWN
Process and the Authentic Life
If we strive to become, then, what we strive to appear, manners may often be rendered useful guides to the performance of our duties.
SYDNEY SMITH
Sermons
Virtue itself offends when coupled with forbidding manners.
BISHOP MIDDLETON
attributed, Treasury of Thought