Social Graces Quotes

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split.

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

Courtesy, like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in the very beginning of our acquaintance and familiarity; and, consequently, that which first opens the door for us to better ourselves by the example of others, if there be anything in the society worth notice

Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.

Manners make often fortunes.

A well-bred youth neither speakes of himselfe, nor being spoken to is silent.

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

Being a 'Lady' used to be something to which all young women aspired.

Good manners do more for a man that good looks.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

You could be the most beautiful girl, but if you're stuck up, that doesn't do it for me.

Emily Post says that talking about oneself isn't very polite.' 'I'm sure Miss Post is perfectly correct, but that doesn't seem to stop the rest of us.

Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.

If analysis shows that someone's brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy - that is, a lack of manners.

Manners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue.... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles.

Politeness is the chief sign of culture.

There is no excuse for bad manners, except fast reflexes.

Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.

I respect the social graces enormously. How to pass the food. Don't yell from one room to another. Don't go through a closed door without a knock. Open the doors for the ladies. All these millions of simple household behaviors make for a better life. We can't live in constant rebellion against our parents - it's just silly. I'm very well mannered. It's not an abstract thing. It's a shared language of expectations.

Civility is a desire to receive civilities, and to be accounted well-bred.

I was brought up in a way that when you're at a dinner party, you don't grab a chip unless it's been offered to everyone else. It's the manners of being brought up by English parents.

The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections, friendships, require a degree of good-breeding both to preserve and cement them.

Good manners come, as we say, from good breeding or rather are good breeding; and breeding is acquired by habitual action, in response to habitual stimuli, not by conveying information.

I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.