Manners

It has been suggested that Politeness be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

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• Etiquette...means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential.
  • Will Cuppy, How to Be a Hermit, 1929

• Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims

• Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts.
  • Abel Stevens, Life of Mme. de Sta

• Be not deceived: Evil communications corrupt good manners.
  • 1 Cor 15:33

• All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Mens Understandings.
  • Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), "Sensus Communis"

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 493-94.

• He was the mildest manner'd man
  That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto III, Stanza 41.

• Now as to politeness … I would venture to call it benevolence in trifles.
  • William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, Correspondence, I. 79.

• Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value; but it will never be worn, nor shine, if it is not polished.
  • Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, Letters (July 1, 1748).

• A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
  Will not affront me, and no other can.
  • William Cowper, Conversation (1782), line 193.

• Nobody ought to have been able to resist her coaxing manner; and nobody had any business to try. Yet she never seemed to know it was her manner at all. That was the best of it.
  • Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, Volume II, Chapter XIV.

• Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life, Behavior.

• Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims.

• Das Betragen ist ein Spiegel in welchem jeder sein Bild zeigt.
  • Translation: Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his image.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, II, 5, Aus Ottiliens Tagebuche.

• The mildest manners with the bravest mind.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book XXIV, line 963. Pope's translation.

• He was so generally civil, that nobody thanked him for it.
  • Samuel Johnson, reported in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1777).

• Ah, ah Sir Thomas, Honores mutant Mores.
  Manners (Lord Rutland). To Sir Thomas More.
  Not so, in faith, but have a care lest we translate the proverb and say, 'Honours change Manners.'
  Answer of Sir Thomas More to Manners.
  • Margaret More, Diary, (October, 1524).

• My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.
  • William Henry Maule, to the Court, on the Authority of Lord Coleridge.

• We call it only pretty Fanny's way.
  • Thomas Parnell, An Elegy to an Old Beauty; compare Leigh Hunt, translation of Dulces Amaryllidis Iræ.

• Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
  And catch the manners, living as they rise;
  Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
  But vindicate the ways of God to man.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 13.

• "What sort of a doctor is he?" "Well, I don't know much about his ability; but he's got a very good bedside manner."
  • Punch, March 15, 1884, accompanying a drawing by G. Du Maurier.

• Quæ fuerant vitia mores sunt.
  • What once were vices, are now the manners of the day.
  • Seneca, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, XXXIX.

• Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
  We write in water.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act IV, scene 2, line 46.

• Ecrivez les injures sur le sable,
  Mais les bienfaits sur le marbre.
  • Write injuries in dust,
    But kindnesses in marble.
  • French saying.

• Fit for the mountains and the barb'rous caves,
  Where manners ne'er were preach'd.
  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act IV, scene 1, line 52.

• Her manners had not that repose
  Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
  • Alfred Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Stanza 5.

• Ut homo est, ita morem geras.
  • Suit your manner to the man.
  • Terence, Adelphi, III. 3. 78.

• Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit.
  • Obsequiousness begets friends; truth, hatred.
  • Terence, Andria, I. 1. 41.