Manner Quotes

To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.

The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.

The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt. When it is clearly necessary to hurt, it must be done in such a way as to make it evident that the necessity is felt to be regrettable.

One of the most important rules in the science of manners is that of almost absolute silence about ourselves.[Une des règles les plus importantes de la science des manières, est un silence presque absolu sur vous-même.]

On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.

My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet.

Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.

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

Manners consist in pretending that we think as well of others as of ourselves.

Manners are the hypocrisy of nations, and hypocrisy is more or less perfect.[Les mœurs sont l’hypocrisie des nations; l’hypocrisie est plus ou moins perfectionnée.]

Manners are necessary because, as a rule, there is a pretence; when our good opinion of others is genuine, manners look after themselves.

If we would succeed in works of imagination, we must offer a mild morality in the midst of rigid manners: but when the manners are corrupt, we must constantly hold up to view an austere morality.[Pour réussir par les ouvrages d’imagination, il faut peut-être présenter une morale facile au milieu des mœurs sévères; mais au milieu des mœurs corrompues, le tableau d’une morale austère est le seul qu’il faille constamment offrir.]