I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
Telling a lie is called wrong. Telling the truth is called right. Except when telling the truth is called bad manners and telling a lie is called polite.
I read all the books I could find about manners, and the extraordinary thing was, in all books up to the end of the Second World War, most were directed at how to comport yourself in the presence of the ladies.
Punishments of unreasonable severity, especially where indiscriminately afflicted, have less effect in preventing crimes, and amending the manners of a people, than such as are more merciful in general, yet properly intermixed with due distinctions of severity.
Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both.
Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, where manners ne'er were preached.
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.
I admire people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings.
Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of virtue.
The Fashionable World is grown free and easie; our Manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish as an agreeable Negligence. In a word, Good Breeding shows it self most, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.
Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.
The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her. . . her eyes were her own.
Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.
Men are like wine,--not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.
When words & manners leave you no space for yourself make very personal very clear & your obstructions will join you or disappear.
Politeness, however, acts the lady's maid to our thoughts; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public.
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 travelling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space.
