Samuel Johnson Quotes

It seldom pays to be rude. It never pays to be only half-rude.

To be rude is as good as being clever.

It is more comfortable for me, in the long run, to be rude than polite.

Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude.

If you are going to be rude, be quick about it.

The whole country wants civility. Why don't we have it? It doesn't cost anything. No federal funding, no legislation is involved. One answer is the unwillingness to restrain oneself. Everybody wants other people to be polite to them, but they want the freedom of not having to be polite to others.

There is a time for politeness and there is a time when you are obliged to be rude.

Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

Etiquette does not render you defenseless. If it did, even I wouldn't subscribe to it. But rudeness in retaliation for rudeness just doubles the amount of rudeness in the world.

People seem to think that you should be willing to speak to them whether they're jerks or not.

No one is more insufferable than he who lacks basic courtesy.

If someone's being less than courteous to you, I don't think you need to pay any attention to them.

My family trained me to be polite to people I had just met, and that included strangers. You speak when you're spoken to. You look people in the eye when they address you and when you address them back.

In a day when, if you insulted a man it might cost you your life, you were probably more civil.

Charm, I think, is education, really, no? I was educated to be nice to everybody. If you want to be rude and mean, I'm sure your life isn't that nice.

If you're not a nice person, don't call.

I have never really encountered anybody that was rude to me. Well, not to my face anyway.

Good manners are appreciated as much as bad manners are abhorred.

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

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

Just because you can say things that are uncivil does not mean that your should say things that are uncivil.

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

I get a choice every time I have to open my mouth: that it can be with civility and dignity and grace - or not.

In my culture, whispering in the company of others is considered rude.