manners Quotes

“Good manners are an admission that everybody is so tender that they have to be handled with gloves. Now, human respect—you don’t call a man a coward or a liar lightly, but if you spend your life sparing people’s feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can’t distinguish what should be respected in them.”

“She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent.”

“He’s so well brought up. I can tell just by looking at how he behaves during dinner. Such lovely manners, and he always offers me the best part of the meat, like the fish cheek or the juiciest piece of duck.”

“Nicky, boys with proper manners do not ever ask questions like that. You do not ever ask people if they are rich or discuss matters concerning money.”

“Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life-learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even little seed in the Styrofoam up-they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned-the biggest word of all-LOOK.”

“She had taught me to disdain the blend of ignorance and arrogance that too often characterized Americans abroad.”

“It matters not how we were brought up. What determines our way of acting is the manner in which we administrate our will. A man is the sum of all his wishes, which determine his way of living and dying. The will is a sentiment, a talent, something which lends us enthusiasm.”

“It is time to effect a revolution in female manners.”

“I’m learning lots more manners. When something tastes yucky we say it’s interesting.”

“She is deeply concerned with the ways of the mice- Their behavior’s not good and their manners not nice; So when she has got them lined up on the matting, She teaches them music, crocheting and tatting.”

“With Cats, some say, one rule is true: Don’t speak till you are spoken to. Myself, I do not hold with that — I say, you should ad-dress a Cat. But always keep in mind that he Resents familiarity. I bow, and taking off my hat, Ad-dress him in this form: O Cat! But if he is the Cat next door, Whom I have often met before (He comes to see me in my flat) I greet him with an oopsa Cat! I think I’ve heard them call him James — But we’ve not got so far as names.”

“The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”

“You know death was always around Suffolk, always around. It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off.”

“Miss Polly did not usually make hurried movements; she specially prided herself on her repose of manner.”

“It is bad taste to yawn in front of people.”

“There are people who are good at manners but have no uprightness.”

“Now, it is very important that you conduct yourself in a manner befitting to your station while at Spence. It’s fine to be kind to the lesser girls, but remember that they are not your equals.”

“Everybody has a heart. Sometimes you gotta work hard to find it...if there’s something you want or need to know from grown folks, you gotta step up and ask for it mannerly. Plead your case.”

“There’s a gentility on the road. A direct or personal question is out of bounds. But this is simple good manners anywhere in the world.”

″‘I don’t think you have particularly good manners with ladies,’ said Pippi. Then she lifted him high into the air with her strong arms. She carried him into a nearby birch tree, and hung him across a branch.”

“And it turned out that Mama had been right: things did go more smoothly. Once they got into the good manners habit, they didn’t even have to think about it.”

“Mama Bear wasn’t quite sure how or why it happened. But she was sure of one thing-- whatever the reason, the Bear family had become a pushing, shoving, name calling, ill mannered mess!

“The best way to fight bad habits, she thought, was with good habits.”

“But when the angry bear saw how polite Papa was, he remembered his manners too.”

“I think you can have too much of a good thing-- you’ve got to have common sense along with manners!”

“Mama’s plan had a list of all the rude things she wanted to stop. Besides each one was a penalty- a job or chore that went with it.

“But it didn’t work the way they expected. Mama didn’t get fed up at all. After a while Brother and Sister forgot about being super polite and were just polite.”

“Manners and courtesy are just as important away from home-- especially on the road.”

“Instead of just being polite, we’ll be super polite. We’ll ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ so much Mama will get fed up and call the whole thing off.”

“My hat doesn’t look like that. Thank you anyway.”

“But you haven’t ONCE said please!”

“PLEASE! I want to go home to my mummy!”

“The most elementary of good manners . . . at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.”

“Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.”

“American impudence! I’ve heard of it before. They call it precocity and freedom. Beastly, impudent bad manners; that’s what it is!”

“Sometimes they went because their masters were obliged to go away from home on trips or business. Sometimes a cat was sent to School to learn good manners.”

“Cats use a different kind of knowledge. I only try to teach Manners and Cooperation, which means courtesy and getting on with one another.”

The Whole Duty of Children A child should always say what’s true And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table; At least as far as he is able.

“The carriage was stopped with a jerk, and the coachman jumped from his seat. He came to the carriage window, and explained that the wind had blown his hat off. ‘I am exceedingly sorry, ma’am,’ he said, ′ but the wind has carried my hat to the other side of the road, and I daren’t leave these frisky horses a minute.”

“I make a point of being polite at breakfast,” said Bill, helping himself largely to porridge.

“Quite right, Major; it’s only manners.”

Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o’clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, “Honey or condensed milk with your bread?” he was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “But don’t bother about the bread, please.”

“I like his manners, and he looks like a little gentleman, so I’ve no objection to your knowing him, if a proper opportunity comes.”

She had an instinctive sense of what was pleasing and proper, always said the right thing to the right person, did just what suited the time and place, and was so self-possessed that her sisters used to say, “If Amy went to court without any rehearsal beforehand, she’d know exactly what to do.”

Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller’s riding-whip; but the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide.

“Tabaqui came to me not long ago with some rude talk that I was a naked man’s cub and not fit to dig pig-nuts. But I caught Tabaqui by the tail and swung him twice against a palm-tree to teach him better manners.”

“And... the worst of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the manners of a pothouse; and... and even admitting that he knew he had some of the essentials of a gentleman... what was there in that to be proud of? Everyone ought to be a gentleman and more than that...

So be it! Well, he’d make a point then of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his manners and he wouldn’t care! He’d be worse!”