Top 133 Manners Quotes

The greater the controversy, the more you need manners.

It’s not polite to refuse to dress for a parly. It’s an insult to your hostess. After all, correct dress is a part of good manners.

The decline of manners, the cynical pursuit without shame or restraint of personal advantage and of money characterizes our times, not without exceptions, of course, but more than we ought to be comfortable with.

When people ask me about what I learned from martial arts, I don’t talk about favorite punches or kicks, or about fights won or lost. I talk about learning self-discipline, about ethics and manners and benevolence and fairness.

God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Sometimes I pine for the era of Miss Manners, when there were hard and fast rules dictating a well-bred individual’s behaviour in any given situation.

You come before me this morning with clean hands and clean collars. I want you to have clean tongues, clean manners, clean morals and clean characters.

Formalized rules of manners were so great because they left no room for basic human haplessness. They allowed us to circumvent our natural boorish tendency to disregard the feelings of others.

That’s how a nation’s manners are going to be taught – from watching others’ behavior and learning from the effects of that behavior.

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.

Once I said to my mother: ‘You would be happy if I just kept well-dressed and had good manners,’ and she said: ‘What else is there?’

Everyone has a temper, but in Sweden, no one throws a racquet or screams. We show more manners and common sense. This is a game, not war.

Civility is not simply about manners.

Let’s face it: professing a deep interest in movies, the absolutely dominant global art form of the last century, is at this point like professing an interest in air. Passion is nice. Erudition is admirable. But it’s like that moment when good manners cross over into meaningless etiquette.

There is no myth relative to the manners and customs of the English that in my experience is more tenaciously held by the ordinary Frenchman than that the sale of a wife in the market-place is an habitual and an accepted fact in English life.

The manners thing’s got worse. People think they can just text you if they’ve got bad news for you. It’s not on. And as for people taking pictures at gigs on their phones, that’s just weird.

There are three subjects on which the knowledge of the medical profession in general is woefully weak; they are manners, morals, and medicine.

I think being able to teach your children manners and to be respectful is one thing that you can do regardless to what class you come from or what religious belief you have.

My parents were relaxed, but very strict on manners. They encouraged us to follow our instincts and desires, so they were quite bohemian in that sense, but we had to work hard and that included chores.

No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.

I don’t accept bad manners, so all my grandchildren are very well behaved, just like my kids.

In my book, all manners are is thinking of somebody else.

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there’s no kind of agreed form of manners.

For the standard of Christian life was to be strained to a higher pitch; more fasting was required, and more careful separation from the manners and enjoyments of the world; celibacy and martyrdom had great value set upon them, and second marriages were prohibited.

It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially – like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.

Adam and Eve are like imaginary numbers, like the square root of minus one… If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it.

Sometimes you need to step away from the game. I’ve had to do that in different manners in my career.

I think the thing I miss most in our age is our manners. It sounds so old-fashioned in a way. But even bad people had good manners in the old days, and manners hold a community together, and manners hold a family together; in a way, they hold the world together.

There’s a real intense thing about manners in the South, a real prescribed way to be a woman.

Donald Trump is a demagogue. Period. The fervor of his crowds recalls Nasser’s Egypt. His convictions are illiberal. His manners are disgusting. His temper is frightening.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

Good manners are appreciated as much as bad manners are abhorred.

For some people, the definition of who is and who isn’t an American defies logic, historical accuracy, common sense, decency, good manners, the milk of human kindness, enjoyment in the good things in life, and love of good food.

This self-congratulatory notion Americans have that their country is Number One is borne of ignorance and bad manners.

Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.

Kafka is not interested in documenting the manners and mores of any particular place; he is not interested in probing the psyche of individual characters.

Unfortunately, chivalry seems to be on the decline, but let’s hope that manners can remain important. I, for one, will certainly be an evangelist with it.

Beware of a man with manners.

Manners is the key thing. Say, for instance, when you’re growing up, you’re walking down the street, you’ve got to tell everybody good morning. Everybody. You can’t pass one person.

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.

Most women find a man with good manners sexy.

The cliche of call-centre work is that it’s mainly older people who will stay on the line to talk to you. Whether through loneliness or good manners, they tend to allow you to finish your sentences, hear you out.

Roxy Music’ and ‘For Your Pleasure,’ those exercises in learning and unlearning of accent and manners, are Pop’s equivalent of ‘The Talented Mr Ripley.’ The clothes , the bearing and the voice are faked, but not yet perfectly.

But my father was also the one who told me I needed to clean up my mouth or I’d never find a man. What’s very important to him is manners. Show up on time. Always send thank-you letters. He is one of the more thoughtful humans I’ve ever met. He’s a great man and a very good dad.

If I’m receiving an email from a stranger, I usually like it to be properly thoughtful and explanatory, and not just hitting someone up for a casual favor out of the blue who you’ve never met before. I really believe in manners.

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.

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.

My grandmother, who was simultaneously a woman of manners and verve, fended off marriage proposals until she was 30 because she was having too much fun to settle down.

Manners make the world work. They’re not only based on kindness but also efficiency. When people know what to do, the world is smoother. When no one knows what to do, it’s chaos.

Prithee don’t screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners.

At any rate, girls are differently situated. Having no need of deep scientific knowledge, their education is confined more to the ordinary things of the world, the study of the fine arts, and of the manners and dispositions of people.

In the period before the arrival of Mrs. Thatcher, politics had been in such low esteem. Everything was so hedged, so mealy-mouthed. Then along came this woman who seemed to have no manners at all and said exactly what she thought. Everyone’s eyes were popping and their jaws were dropping, and I really enjoyed that.

Politeness is half good manners and half good lying.

Well, I’m from the South originally. I grew up in South Carolina definitely learning about manners and being proper and having to go to cotillions.

Be simple in words, manners, and gestures. Amuse as well as instruct. If you can make a man laugh, you can make him think and make him like and believe you.

My parents were very strict about manners and being polite to others. I brought my own children up that way, too.

When people talk about political correctness, the only element of any value is good manners.

You can get through life with bad manners, but it’s easier with good manners.

American manners are different than British manners.

There used to be an art form called the ‘comedy of manners.’ Why aren’t comedies of manners made now in this country? The answer is simple. We no longer have manners to speak of.

I differ materially from Capt. Lewis, in my account of the numbers, manners, and morals of the Sioux.

Teach love, generosity, good manners and some of that will drift from the classroom to the home and who knows, the children will be educating the parents.

I have a big problem when the sanctimonious, holier than thou congressmen and women go on national television for six hours and beat somebody up with a stick, and not because I’m ‘Ms. Manners.’ That’s not what bothers me. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

In life, if you have an enthusiasm for what they call ‘good manners,’ sometimes people don’t quite believe you. I’ve had that once or twice before, where they assume you can’t be for real.

Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.

The man who practises unselfishness, who is genuinely interested in the welfare of others, who feels it a privilege to have the power to do a fellow-creature a kindness – even though polished manners and a gracious presence may be absent – will be an elevating influence wherever he goes.

I want a gentleman. Someone with manners.

I do not mourn the death of the printed letter in a snobby, East Coast, patrician way – ‘Where have our manners gone?’ – but because I love objects, I love paper, and I love something that I can hold to my chest for a moment. Still, I bear no grudge against the e-mail form itself.

We were taught manners and we had to do our chores – Katie and I grew up as normal kids.

You lose your manners when you are poor.

Flannery O’Connor is my creative hero. I think she’s the greatest American writer. Her book, ‘Mystery and Manners,’ is my creative bible.

Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects.

Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.

Command that no one be received, or kept to be of your household indoors or without, if one has not reasonable belief of them that they are faithful, discreet, and painstaking in the office for which they are received, and withal honest and of good manners.

Grace is in garments, in movements, in manners; beauty in the nude, and in forms. This is true of bodies; but when we speak of feelings, beauty is in their spirituality, and grace in their moderation.

I lived in a world where social arrangements were taken for granted and assumed to be timeless. A child’s obligation was to learn these usages, not to question them. The complexities of racial deportment were of a piece with learning manners and etiquette more generally.

The most fascinating person is always the one of the most winning manners; not the one of greatest physical beauty.

I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.

Not to be purple, but I’ve never been a ‘bad boy’ kind of girl. I like manners.

Politeness is, you know, is a wonderful thing. Manners are in fact, really important thing. But remember, Jesus didn’t have many manners as we now know.

Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people’s bad manners.

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

You learn, just as you learn good manners, how to approach things with a certain amount of diplomacy.

One of the few things I like about Bill Clinton is that he has very good manners. If his momma were still alive, I would congratulate her.

That survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything. It’s such a powerful force.

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

I don’t like it when people don’t hold the door. I don’t know, that really bugs me… I guess I like manners.

I was raised by very traditional Southern parents with Southern manners. You don’t air your dirty laundry to people that aren’t your family or your friends. Why would I ever want to portray myself as anything other than together?

I moved to a city and joined a sort of fast crowd. A lot of people who grew up in the city sort of aren’t aware of manners and other ways of life and ‘common decency.’

Persian social manners are well known, and there is no other society that can compete with them.

Let us not become so intense in our zeal to do good by winning arguments or by our pure intention in disputing doctrine that we go beyond good sense and manners, thereby promoting contention, or say and do imprudent things, invoke cynicism, or ridicule with flippancy.

Friends and good manners will carry you where money won’t go.

We’re living in what I like to call the ‘Thank You Economy,’ because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way – and do it authentically – are going to have a prayer of competing.

Arles is certainly one of the most interesting towns I have ever seen, whether viewed as a place remarkable for the objects of antiquity it contains, or for the primitive manners of its inhabitants and its picturesque appearance.

I will not ever say that it’s good to start with too little preparation, because that’s patently not true. But I don’t rehearse the way a lot of directors do, to stage a scene in terms of manners and attitudes and lock them in.

Song Joong-ki is known for his sincerity and manners. He is younger than me, but I thought I learned many things from him.

My grandmother used to teach me that it’s bad manners to invite yourself to somebody’s house.

Being polite, being respectful, having manners, and being a socialite – they’re key life skills that people take for granted. Being able to communicate with all people on all levels is what’s got me so far.

Don’t keep your good manners to the end another time, but begin with them.

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

My father John taught me about hard work and the importance of manners.

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

Any guy I date has to have manners – you know, get the door. And he has to have confidence and be secure in who he is.

In the end, perhaps it will be the true romantics, not the nerds, who choose to flee from a world of impersonal, digitized relationships and into the arms of simulacrums with manners imported from simpler times.

War is a form of really bad manners, in a strange way. Invading a country I think is just the worst possible manners. ‘You’re not invited!’ Gate crashing on a large scale!

It is possible to have good manners and be funny at the same time. Ronnie Barker and I proved that.

My family’s big on discipline, respect, manners, make sure that we respect our elders. So that’s kind of what the military is. You have to say, ‘Yes sir,’ ‘No ma’am,’ ‘Yes ma’am.’ All that stuff. That’s kind of the mold my dad has for my brothers and I.

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.

For some people, the definition of who is and who isn’t an American defies logic, historical accuracy, common sense, decency, good manners, the milk of human kindness, enjoyment in the good things in life, and love of good food.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

When going out on a date, I think there are certain old-fashioned manners that I still enjoy. I don’t mean that as an anti-feminist comment. I just mean it as a pro-women comment. There must be a place for us to exist and our differences to exist without one taking away from the other.

My telephone manners were, well, offensive to some. As I lugged my cell around, yammering away, I noticed cold stares from passersby who viewed me as a kind of techno-terrorist, or at least incredibly rude.

We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.

Buy other authors’ books when you go to their events. Even if you aren’t going to read it. Even if you are going to give it away. Even if you aren’t interested. Not just for the author but for the bookstore. It’s karma and just plain good manners.

The show is like an Edwardian play – emotional life gets stepped on for the sake of accepted manners, and that’s terrific for actors to play in.

I’m a big believer in manners and respect: that one should never do to another what you wouldn’t wish for yourself.

I believe the death of Bobby Kennedy was in many ways the death of decency in America. I think it was the death of manners and formality, the death of poetry and the death of a dream.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance.

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.

Good manners don’t cost nothing.

It’s really important for children to have good morals and good manners, and that they’re thoughtful of other people and that they learn the consequences of their actions.

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

I don’t ever knock anybody; that’s bad manners.

Good manners are cost effective. They not only increase the quality of life in the workplace, they contribute to employee morale, embellish the company image, and play a major role in generating profit.

Being a parent does not give you an excuse for bad manners.

Sitting down for dinner not only helps you learn, but also teaches you how to listen – which I feel is the most important skill to have. I remember as a kid going around the table listening to everyone’s day. It was hard to have the manners not to interrupt back then.

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not.

James Salter is a consummate storyteller. His manners are precise and elegant; he has a splendid New York accent; he runs his hands through his gray hair and laughs boyishly.

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

A car is useless in New York, essential everywhere else. The same with good manners.