Manners Quotes

737 Manners quotes by 492 unique authors

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one. — Henry David Thoreau
Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance, but the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within. — Jean de la Bruyere
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws. — Baron de Montesquieu
Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers. — Robert A. Heinlein
Manhood is melted into courtesies, valor into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones, too. — William Shakespeare
Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization. — Andre Maurois
The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and… — Mark Twain
Our children will not survive our habits of thinking, our failures of the spirit, our wreck of the universe into which we bring new life… — June Jordan
What you discover about people you try not to offend is that you can offend them without trying. — Robert Breault
Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners. — William Warburton
Being a parent does not give you an excuse for bad manners. — Rosalind Wiseman
The greater person is one of courtesy. — Alfred Lord Tennyson
What once were vices are manners now. — Seneca the Younger
Fashionably amusing table manners are a matter of breaking the right rule at the right time. — P.J. O'Rourke
Good manners consist of doing precisely what everyone thinks should be done, especially when no one knows quite what that is. — P.J. O'Rourke
Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste and style mixed together so that you don't need any of those things. — P.J. O'Rourke
Politeness is fictitious benevolence. — Samuel Johnson
Plasticity loves new moulds because it can fill them, but for a man of sluggish mind and bad manners there is decidedly no place like… — George Santayana
Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both. — Lord Chesterfield
Better were it to be unborn than to be ill bred. — Walter Raleigh
Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness. — Dorothy Parker
True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can. — Alexander Pope
People who put slipcovers, doilies, plastic protectors, and cellophane on everything good that they own rarely live to see an occasion so good that all… — Judith Martin

Who Wrote These Manners Quotes

492 authors contributed a total of 737 Manners Quotes, led by these top contributors: