Craig Ferguson Quotes

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners.

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

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

There is a close meshing with the ritual properties of persons and with the egocentric forms of territoriality.

In general, in more collectivist cultures, we see that in group settings, people dampen their emotions but are very expressive when they are at home alone. In more individualistic cultures, such as North America and Europe, it's the opposite - people are more expressive in group settings than when they are by themselves.

In England, gossiping is not as commonplace or even celebrated as much as it is in Latino culture. But it is not as frowned upon as it is in the United States by U.S. Americans.

It's one of these things that I've been struck by for so long about America. You know, this amazing politeness of American life that's not at all class specific. It's not like people get more polite as ascend the hierarchy of society. Just incredible good manners. It's always been something that I've noticed.

I think that people in Mexico talk too much.

While there are relatively few extreme introverts or extroverts, most of us lean in one direction or the other. If we lean more toward introversion, we'll generally prefer less social activity than more extroverted people. One inclination is not 'better' than another, but our culture can make it seem as if extroverts have a social advantage.

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

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.

Though shyness per se was unacceptable, reserve was a mark of good breeding.

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."

There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum.

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 are just a formal expression of how you treat people.

Alas! it is true: "Be polite to bores and so shall you have bores always round about you."

I like to get up in the morning and see people.

Not greeting people isn't enough. One also doesn't greet people one doesn't know.

A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.

Civilization has taught us to eat with a fork, but even now if nobody is around we use our fingers.

Ceremonies are the outworks of manners.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the sophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

No 'Good evening, Jean-Claude, how are you doing?' Just down to business. How terribly rude,ma petite ." - Jean-Claude

Too much society makes a man frivolous; too little, a savage.