Christopher Gorham Quotes

I was sent to a finishing school, which didn't last long when mother found out how badly chaperoned we were. Then I 'came out' before going to a domestic science school.

I actually didn't go to prom. I didn't have the chance.

For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

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

Like language, a code of manners can be used with more or less skill, for laudable or for evil purposes, to express a great variety of ideas and emotions. In itself, it carries no moral value, but ignorance in use of this tool is not a sign of virtue.

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.

Good manners consist of doing precisely what everyone thinks should be done, especially when no one knows quite what that is.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

Miss Manners does not mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but she feels that anyone without the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in their face should probably not be running around loose on the streets.

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

Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both.

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

Yes, etiquette is hypocritical. Yes, it does inhibit children - if you're lucky. But the idea that it's elitist and irrelevant is like saying language is elitist and irrelevant.

Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot, all produce "boum.

I'm making a list I'm making a list of things I must say For politeness, And goodness and kindness and gentleness Sweetness and rightness: Hello Pardon me How are you? Excuse me Bless you May I? Thank you Goodbye If you know some that I've forgot, Please stick them in you eye!

Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.

Courtesy is fine and heaven knows we need more and more of it in a rude and frenetic world, but mechanized courtesy is as pallid as Pablum ... in fact, it isn't even courtesy.

Politeness smooths wrinkles.

All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.

Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.

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.

It's worth living abroad to study up on genteel and delicate manners. The maid smiles continuously; she smiles like a duchess on a stage, while at the same time it is clear from her face that she is exhausted from overwork.

It is a very nice world-that is, if you remember that while morals are all-important between the Lord and His creatures, what counts between one creature and another is good manners.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life.... Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.