Phyllis Theroux Quotes

I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.

Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other.

I think the sort of person you want at a party is someone who is self-aware, polite and has a basic knowledge of table manners. And that goes for both men and women.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

Politeness does not always inspire goodness, equity, complaisance, and gratitude; it gives at least the appearance of these qualities, and makes man appear outwardly, as he should be within.

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.

Etiquette is all human social behavior. If you're a hermit on a mountain, you don't have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you've got a problem. It matters because we want to live in reasonably harmonious communities.

One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.

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.

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

In a culture, manners are the lubrication that ease the frictions of social contacts.

There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we doubt whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all.

As a man's salutations, so is the total of his character; in nothing do we lay ourselves so open as in our manner of meeting and salutation.

Manners are just a formal expression of how you treat people.

I was raised right — I talk about people behind their backs. It's called manners.

The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections, friendships, require a degree of good-breeding both to preserve and cement them.

The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight.

Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease.

Only a great fool or a great genius is likely to flout all social grace with impunity, and neither one, doing so, makes the most comfortable companion.

Politeness is an inexpensive way to make friends.

A lot of our lives are about being polite.

In the 50s and 60s, kids were taught how to shake hands. They were taught how to have manners. There needs to be a lot more of that kind of stuff because the autistic mind doesn't pick up social things and subtle cues.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

I was woefully ignorant in the social graces. I was being raised, after all, by Pellinore Warthrop.