Jane Austen Quotes

Everyone knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything cooly is to do it genteelly.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

In the ordinary course of things, how many succeed in society merely by virtue of their manners, while others, however meritorious, fail through lack of them? After all, it's only barbarians who wear uncut precious stones.

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

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

Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well.

When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.

Vulgarity is innocent; urbanity is not.

The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh.

In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.

My family brought me up to be very respectful of people.

For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.

I like things that are civilized.

I was brought up to be a gentleman. That means you know how to walk, talk and dress the part.

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

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.

Women of quality are so civil, you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding.

In the contemporary world, we think of politeness as surface behavior, like frosting - it's sweet and attractive and finishes off the cake. But 19th century nobility and the enlightened thinkers and stoics before them viewed manners in a very different way. To them, manners are an outward expression of an inward struggle.

A fine lady; by which term I wish to express the result of that perfect education in taste and manner, down to every gesture, which heaven forbid that I, professing to be a poet, should undervalue. It is beautiful, and therefore I welcome it in the name of the author of all beauty. I value it so highly that I would fain see it extend not merely from Belgravia to the tradesman's villa, but thence, as I believe it one day will, to the laborer's hovel and the needlewoman's garret.

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

Racist people, interestingly, are never as polite as smokers. Have you noticed that? Smokers always go, "Do you mind if I smoke? Oh, you do? Okay, I'll go outside and have a cigarette."

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.

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.

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

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