Charles Lamb Quotes

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

I don't like people's table manners. That really puts you off eating food.

Politeness is sometimes a great tax upon sincerity.

The liar was the hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and the cad his honor

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

Those who seek to impress upon us that they are gentlemen will usually be found mistaken.

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

Polite diseases make some idiots vain, Which, if unfortunately well, they feign.

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.

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."

I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate

I have seen people rude by being over-polite.

On the whole, I should say that the person who likes to lie should never, in any circumstances, be allowed to. Leave the lying to the people who hate it. You will not find them indulging often.

Affectation is the product of falsehood.

I pride myself on being fairly polite on a set so it's kind of a guilty pleasure to poke others on the set.

Don’t lick the guests, darling. Bad manners.

The politer the society, the greater the lies it requires.

Basil Stag Hare tut-tutted severely as he remarked to Ambrose Spike, 'Tch, tch. Dreadful table manners. Just look at those three wallahs, kicking up a hullaballoo like that! Eating's a serious business.

You smile with pomp and rigor, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time.

Taste and good-nature are universally connected.

Just because I tread heavily on propriety's toes doesn't mean I can't play the game when it's of use to me.

But in my book, it was basically bad taste to stare at someone's assets, no matter how much on display they were.

People say when you're in love, you don't need etiquette. Well, you need it then more than anything. Or they say, "At home I can just be myself." What they mean is they can be their worst selves... They always mean they will save all their anxiety about how to behave for somebody like the head waiter of a restaurant, someone they'll never see again.

I find it very eerie when somebody is being really polite.

Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.