William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential.

It's one of these things that I've been struck by for so long about America. You know, this amazing politeness of American life that's not at all class specific. It's not like people get more polite as ascend the hierarchy of society. Just incredible good manners. It's always been something that I've noticed.

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

Manners form the great charm of women.

Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.

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

You have not fulfilled every duty unless you have fulfilled that of being pleasant.

This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir'd by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity.

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

I think the sort of person you want at a party is someone who is self-aware, polite and has a basic knowledge of table manners. And that goes for both men and women.

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

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

Good manners make any man a pleasure to be with. Ask any woman.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.

Manners make often fortunes.

Mutual good humor is a dress we ought to appear in wherever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice.

The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.

Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.

Manners are not idle, but the fruit of loyal and of noble mind.

The most elementary of good manners . . . at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.

Nice manners are the secret keys to the universe.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

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

Gentleness is the great point to be obtained in the study of manners.

If you cannot conduct yourself with propriety, give place to those who can.