Russell Baker Quotes

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

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.

Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential.

I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.

The etiquette question has become of so much importance as to be an object of state.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them.

Etiquette-a fancy word for simple kindness.

I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.

Etiquette requires us to admire the human race.

One of the things that hold together a human society is the existence of basic politeness among its members.

Civility is a choice.

Etiquette can be at the same time a means of approaching people and of staying clear of them.

The basic meaning of etiquette is to be quick at both the beginning and end and tranquil in the middle.

There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis.

A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion; it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.

Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.

Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.

Manners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue.... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles.

The etiquette business has its emergencies, heaven knows, but it is in the nature of etiquette emergencies that once one realizes what one has done, it is too late. One might as well get a good night's sleep and send flowers with an apology in the morning.

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.

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

The more you act like a lady, the more he'll act like a gentleman.

People don't know how to behave in public anymore.

People are pretty respectful for the most part.