Jonathan Swift Quotes

Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.

A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.

Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.

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.

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.

I swear I've never met a man who has your knack for lack of social grace. If you weren't naturally charming, someone would have stabbed you by now.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

Human beings are social animals; we devote a significant portion of our brain just to dealing with interactions with other humans.

Etiquette is all human social behavior. If you're a hermit on a mountain, you don't have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you've got a problem. It matters because we want to live in reasonably harmonious communities.

I believe you learn social skills by mixing with people.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship.

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

I don't know how to talk. Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we doubt whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all.

Manners, really good ones, make it possible to live with almost anyone, gracefully and pleasantly.

The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.

A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.

Only a great fool or a great genius is likely to flout all social grace with impunity, and neither one, doing so, makes the most comfortable companion.

Talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company; this being one of the few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.

Politeness is an inexpensive way to make friends.

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.

Good manners - the longer I live the more convinced I am of it - are a priceless insurance against failure and loneliness. And anyone can have them.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

People give out compliments because it's polite.

A well-bred youth neither speakes of himselfe, nor being spoken to is silent.