Judith Martin Quotes

To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.

A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.

Propriety is the least of all laws, and the most observed.

The best way to learn to be a lady is to see how other ladies do it.

Never slam a car door. According to the Westchester elite, it's a heinous crime, as heartless as kicking a puppy.

People think, mistakenly, that etiquette means you have to suppress your differences. On the contray, etiquette is what enables you to deal with them; it gives you a set of rules.

Respectability is the state of never being caught doing anything which gives you pleasure.

It is disgusting to pick your teeth; what is vulgar is to use a gold toothpick.

In my day, there were things that were done, and things that were not done, and there was even a way of doing things that were not done.

Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

In proceeding to the dining-room, the gentleman gives one arm to the lady he escorts--it is unusual to offer both.

In morals, always do as others do; in art, never.

because everybody lies. It's part of living in society .

A refined soul is distressed to know that someone owes it thanks; a crude soul, to know that it owes someone thanks.

My father used to say, "Superior people never make long visits, have to be shown Longfellows grave, or the glass flowers at Harvard."

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

It is so much easier to extol the virtues of civility than to talk civilly about the virtues we need to uphold.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

Now before we get into anything, ladies, no scratching, no spitting and no tattling to mummy.

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency.

A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.

Mind your P's and Q's.

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.