The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.
There is certainly something of exquisite kindness and thoughtful benevolence in that rarest of gifts,--fine breeding.
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.
Says the rude child: "No, I won't do it. " Says the courteous grown-up: "Yes, I won't do it.
Dressing well is a form of good manners.
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.
We sometimes meet an original gentleman, who, if manners had not existed, would have invented them.
I believe the Bible to be the written Word of God and to contain in it the whole rule of faith and manners.
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
Good manners do more for a man that good looks.
Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.
Good manners protect the privileged, but leave the unprivileged more vulnerable.
Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
In England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved.
To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all.
Class is considerate of others. It knows that good manners is nothing more than a series of petty sacrifices.
You lose your manners when you're poor.
Manners carry the world for the moment, character for all time.
I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.
One musn't overrate the culture of what used to be called "top people" before the wars. They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans.