Charles Fort Quotes

It is not enough to be wrong, one must also be polite.

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

I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.

Civility is a choice.

Though shyness per se was unacceptable, reserve was a mark of good breeding.

There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.

You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you're trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you...There are plenty of people who say, 'We don't care about etiquette, but we can't stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don't want him around!' Etiquette doesn't have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them because their behavior is unbearable.

Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challengeis; they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.

Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.

Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

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

Yes, etiquette is hypocritical. Yes, it does inhibit children - if you're lucky. But the idea that it's elitist and irrelevant is like saying language is elitist and irrelevant.

it is bad manners to contradict a guest. You must never insult people in your own house - always go to theirs.

For heaven’s sake, if you don’t know someone’s name, just pretend you do. Do that thing everyone else does, where you vaguely say, “Nice to see you!” and make weak eye contact.

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.

You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate,' Ellen told her daughter. 'You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

If I'm out to dinner with a group of friends, and somebody offers to pay for the check, I immediately reach for my wallet. Inside is a note that says, "Say thanks!"

A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.

Never make eye contact with anyone while eating a banana

The best way to learn to be a lady is to see how other ladies do it.

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

Good manners can replace morals. It may be years before anyone knows if what you are doing is right. But if what you are doing is nice, it will be immediately evident.

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