Edward Young Quotes

The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one.

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble, while our hearts are so proud.

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

One may be humble out of pride.

False modesty can be worse than arrogance.

The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.

I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.

Those who seek to impress upon us that they are gentlemen will usually be found mistaken.

Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.

I hate a man who swallows [his food], affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters.

One who preserves all the exterior decencies of ignorance.

Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.

Solemnity is the shield of idiots

In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions; he must seem pleased, when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost and receive with smiles, those whom he would much rather meet with swords.

False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie.

Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored; and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away and laughed.

Just because I tread heavily on propriety's toes doesn't mean I can't play the game when it's of use to me.

People say when you're in love, you don't need etiquette. Well, you need it then more than anything. Or they say, "At home I can just be myself." What they mean is they can be their worst selves... They always mean they will save all their anxiety about how to behave for somebody like the head waiter of a restaurant, someone they'll never see again.

I find it very eerie when somebody is being really polite.

He (Intellectuals) claims that label to compensate for his own inadequacies. It's as old as that saying: tell me what you boast of and I'll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as excessively devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant and the feeble-minded as intellectual.

That's what the world is like: people talk as if they knew everything, but ifyou dare to ask a question, they don't know anything.

Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.

I'm not always sincere. One can't be in this world, you know.

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