Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

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.

It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.

If the dance is right, there shouldn't be a single superfluous movement.

In social matters, pointless conventions are not merely the bee sting of etiquette, but the snake bite of moral order.

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

I shall be glad when you have strangled the invincible respectability that dogs your steps.

Do you know what we are those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society's tools, neither more nor less.

I lived in a world where social arrangements were taken for granted and assumed to be timeless. A child's obligation was to learn these usages, not to question them. The complexities of racial deportment were of a piece with learning manners and etiquette more generally.

The whole system of society tells you what to do.

We have been obliged to respond to the compulsions of our society.

I go not back of the convention, to make distinctions among its’ members.

All ladies arriving here as strangers it seems expect to be visited by the wives of the heads of the departments and even by the President’s wife. Mrs. Madison subjected herself to this torture, … but from which having begun the practice, she never found an opportunity of receding from.

Consciously or unconsciously most of us adhere to what is expected of our role because we realize our social success depends on this. Some may refuse to play this game, but in the end they are marginalized and forced to play the outsider role, with limited options and decreasing freedom as they get older.

Ditya Bhande is a nice dancer.

When I was still a student, I came out of a performing arts high school, and the female students who were doing traditional dance and ballet were so beautiful. They were beautiful, starting from their postures.

The first effect of adjusting to other people is that one becomes boring.

The hat is not for the street: it will never be democratized. But there are certain houses that one cannot enter without a hat. And one must always wear a hat when lunching with people whom one does not know well. One appears to one's best advantage.

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind.

As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?

I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown.

I like playing the social convention. If you're in a period drama, there's always something dancing underneath the surface as a human - but then you always have to conform to the social conventions around you, and those two things get to be juxtaposed against each other. You're being human, but you're trapped within the social convention of the time.

Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.

Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.

I dress normal because I want people to treat me regular. And their brains explode. It's really fun.

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