Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

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

People give out compliments because it's polite.

Avoid banquets which are given by strangers an ignorant persons. But if there is ever occasion to join them, let your attention be carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manner of the vulgar (the uninstructed).

Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.

It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.

I think you have to be respectful to the people who want to talk to you.

I like working with people. I like talking to people.

Always come to a conversation armed with two drinks. Then if it's dire you can pretend you were on the way to find someone else. And if it's interesting, you can stay and down both glasses without moving.

Cocktail parties for me can be nerve-racking. The brevity of conversations, the number of them - it's not my sweet spot.

I think that people in Mexico talk too much.

talking too much is a far greater social fault than talking too little.

Etiquette can be at the same time a means of approaching people and of staying clear of them.

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.

Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.

We often laughed at others in our house, and I picked up the craft of being polite while people were present and laughing later if there was anything to laugh about.

People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say, 'I don't like you,' unless that person has been horrible to you.

I like being around people who are good conversationalists.

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

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

Alas! it is true: "Be polite to bores and so shall you have bores always round about you."

It would be nice if people said, God bless you not just when you sneezed but also when you farted.

A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.

The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?

A lot of our lives are about being polite.