Avraham Burg Quotes

Every member present must behave like a gentleman, and those who are not must try to.

Freedom without rules doesn't work. And communities do not work unless they are regulated by etiquette.

I never mean to be disrespectful, and I don't mean to be a wise guy.

Grownups have to say 'please,' too.

You can't be truly rude until you understand good manners.

Callousness and insolence bring to bare unanimous social condemnation, while the simple efforts of politeness are admired; even in those who are otherwise despised.

I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.

I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.

We must not confuse protocol with principle.

The etiquette question has become of so much importance as to be an object of state.

Manners make the world work. They're not only based on kindness but also efficiency. When people know what to do, the world is smoother. When no one knows what to do, it's chaos.

There are certain things you don't say that's disrespectful. They detract from the point you're trying to make.

People have no concept of boundaries.

You don't spit on people, especially people's corners.

Ceremony is an invention to take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow-creature than some other person is. It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in little points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to deny in the greater.

Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.

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

When I was growing up, my family was serious about manners. I always wanted to put my elbow on the table to prop my head up. I didn't understand how other people looked awake. My head felt so heavy after the whole day.

I sent my Christmas wishes to him, but he didn't answer. He's the world's best coach, but as a man he still has to learn manners and respect.

There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum.

Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.

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.

Politeness is the chief sign of culture.

Etiquette is the grease that makes it possible for all of us to rub together without unnecessary overheating.

If the door has been opened and I've been invited, or if I'm not invited and I somehow know I'm supposed to go in there, I put myself together and go in, praying all the while. I try to learn something before I go in. I try to show some respect of the place I'm going into.