Emily Post Quotes

In proceeding to the dining-room, the gentleman gives one arm to the lady he escorts--it is unusual to offer both.

A gentleman should never take his hat off with a flourish.

It is perfectly right for a gentleman to say "ladies and gentlemen," but a lady should say, "gentlemen and ladies." You mention your friend's name before you do your own. I always feel like rebuking any woman who says, "ladies and gentlemen." It is a lack of good manners.

As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unaquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood--a circumstance at all times unpleasant.

I think I tend to try to let a woman walk through a door first, and I walk on the outside on the street. But that's probably because I'm an ancient creature.

The show is like an Edwardian play - emotional life gets stepped on for the sake of accepted manners, and that's terrific for actors to play in.

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners.

I'm trying to be more of a gentleman.

I'm a gentleman, if nothing else. It's taken me years to become one, but finally I have a sense of propriety.

No gentleman ever discusses any relationship with a lady.

I grew up in the Midwest, so I have sort of an honorable moral code. But I moved to a city and joined a sort of fast crowd. A lot of people who grew up in the city sort of aren't aware of manners and other ways of life and 'common decency.'

The bed is now as public as the dinner table and governed by the same rules of formal confrontation.

Formalized rules of manners were so great because they left no room for basic human haplessness. They allowed us to circumvent our natural boorish tendency to disregard the feelings of others.

There's no chivalry in culture any more. Sometimes you meet someone who everyone says is polite and you're like, 'Wow,' but then it's like, 'Hang on, isn't everyone supposed to be polite?'

Gentlemen don't do that.

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split.

Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.

For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

Though shyness per se was unacceptable, reserve was a mark of good breeding.

There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum.

A gentleman doesn't pounce he glides. If a woman sits on a piece of furniture which permits your sitting beside her, you are free to regard this as an invitation, though not an unequivocal one.

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established

A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion; it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.

The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?

"Sorry," she said, "I got out as fast as I could, but I had to stay and socialize. Protocol, you know." "Explain protocol," Nell said. This was how she always talked to the Primer. "At the place we’re going, you need to watch your manners. Don’t say 'explain this' or 'explain that.'" "Would it impose on your time unduly to provide me with a concise explanation of the term protocol?" Nell said. Again Rita made that nervous laugh and looked at Nell with an expression that looked like poorly concealed alarm.