Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes

He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.

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.

Air and manners are more expressive than words.

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

Lesson one, introduce yourself to everyone when you walk into a room. Don't act like you're too bougie to say, 'Hello.'

If you're entering a room for the first time, do it the way you would in life - look around; see how they have the furniture arranged. If your character is meeting another character for the first time, meet them the way you would in life.

One of the most telling things about a person is how they say hello, handshakes.

Whether you want to admit it or not, people begin to judge you the minute you walk in the door.

Making a strong first impression is as important as ever, especially when meeting face-to-face.

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.

When Jennie, mother of Winston Churchill invited playwright George Bernard Shaw to lunch, he telegraphed: "Certainly not. What have I done to provoke such an attack on my well-known habits?" She replied, "Know nothing of your habits; hope they are better than your manners."

A party is a slightly artificial event where one learns the rudiments of human behavior at its most admirable: speaking when spoken to, looking somebody in the eye, shaking hands and being friendly under duress.

There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world either to get a good name, or to supply the want of it.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life.... Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.

Speech, after all, is in some measure an expression of character, and flexibility in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the robots.

If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.

If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Watch a man do his most common actions.

Good manners do more for a man that good looks.

I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.

Never does a man portray his character more vividly than when proclaiming the character of another.

Manners are the ability to put someone else at their ease...by turning any answer into another question.

Courtesy, like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in the very beginning of our acquaintance and familiarity; and, consequently, that which first opens the door for us to better ourselves by the example of others, if there be anything in the society worth notice

The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too. [The human element]

We have only two sources of information about the character of the people around us: we judge them by what they do and by what they say (particularly the first).

Courtesy is the due of man to man; not of suit-of-clothes to suit-of-clothes.