Joseph Addison Quotes

What a rare gift, by the by, is that of manners! how difficult to define, how much more difficult to impart! Better for a man to possess them than wealth, beauty, or talent; they will more than supply all.

I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.

The sign of a person who has had an education is good manners.

One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else.

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little inconveniences and preferences which will gratify them, and deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration; it is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expressions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as themselves. How cheap a price for the good will of another!

Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage, they form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which give such a depth to the morning meadows.

Manners, really good ones, make it possible to live with almost anyone, gracefully and pleasantly.

Manners are the ornament of action.

I pride myself on being the nicest person in the room. My grandmother always told me, 'Manners will take you where money won't.' When I walk into a room, I say "hello" to everyone I don't care who the person is or what they do, it's simply being respectful.

Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

Politeness is the chief sign of culture.

Good manners are a sign of strength.

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.

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.

The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

Manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth.

One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.

A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.

When will conventional good manners become attractive? When will ladies of fashion exhibit their shoulders a little less and their affability and wit a little more?

Politeness is an inexpensive way to make friends.

Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.

Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

Nothing can constitute good-breeding that has not good-nature for its foundation.