William Congreve Quotes

Vulgarity of manners defiles fine garments more than mud.

Vulgarity is innocent; urbanity is not.

A gentleman never talks about his tailor.

But a dandy can never be a vulgar man.

I was brought up to be a gentleman. That means you know how to walk, talk and dress the part.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

There is a fine line between sensuousness and vulgarity. I will not cross that line.

With a woman around, there's a tendency to eliminate vulgarity and profanity and create a more businesslike attitude.

The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.

Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman.

Howard and Shirley were clothed, always, in an invisible layer of decorum that they never laid aside.

The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.

Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings.

The distinguishing trait of people accustomed to good society is a calm, imperturbable quiet which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money, in quiet; while low persons cannot take up either a spoon or an affront without making such an amazing noise about it.

A gentleman should never take his hat off with a flourish.

A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?

Manners are the ornament of action.

A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.

Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

Politeness is the chief sign of culture.

A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion; it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

What a rare gift, by the by, is that of manners! how difficult to define, how much more difficult to impart! Better for a man to possess them than wealth, beauty, or talent; they will more than supply all.

it was always insolent for a common man to take a chair in the presence of a lady - the word LADY, we may be sure, capitalized in her mind, and denoting not sex but rank.