Hudson Taylor Quotes

Manners are a way of getting what you want without appearing to be an absolute swine.

I get a choice every time I have to open my mouth: that it can be with civility and dignity and grace - or not.

Tact, the kind of tact you should cultivate, is not a form of deception or make-believe, but a cultivated taste which gives fine perception in seeing and doing what is best under all circumstances. There is nothing which will so readily bring you into favor, or disarm an opponent, as the right use of tact.

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.

It is more comfortable for me, in the long run, to be rude than polite.

I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.

Gentleness corrects whatever is offensive in our manner.

Minimum information given with maximum politeness.

If analysis shows that someone's brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy - that is, a lack of manners.

Being polite, being respectful, having manners, and being a socialite - they're key life skills that people take for granted. Being able to communicate with all people on all levels is what's got me so far.

Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.

Tact does for life just what lubricating oil does for machinery.

I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos.

Politeness. Now there's a poor man's virtue if ever there was one. What's so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know. After all, it's easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else. People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think about them.

Politeness smooths wrinkles.

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

There can be no defence like elaborate courtesy.

You learn, just as you learn good manners, how to approach things with a certain amount of diplomacy.

One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.

I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.

The greater the controversy, the more you need manners.

Obviously I'm going to be polite, so nobody has anything to fear from me.

Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way.

My family trained me to be polite to people I had just met, and that included strangers. You speak when you're spoken to. You look people in the eye when they address you and when you address them back.

Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.