Freya Stark Quotes

In a culture, manners are the lubrication that ease the frictions of social contacts.

The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight.

Good general-purpose manners nowadays may be said to consist in knowing how much you can get away with.

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

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones.

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.

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.

Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

Manners form the great charm of women.

I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.

Politeness is the chief sign of culture.

Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.

A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.

When it came to, like, appropriate behavior towards one another, it was - I was well-versed.

That bad manners are so prevalent in the world is the fault of good manners.

A lot of our lives are about being polite.

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

Be not forward, but friendly and courteous; the first to salute, hear and answer; and be not pensive when it is time to converse.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world either to get a good name, or to supply the want of it.

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

Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way through the world.