78 quotes found
"Courtesy will draw benevolence."
"A moral, sensible, and well-bred man Will not affront me, and no other can."
"Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy."
"How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy! Wholesome as air and genial as the light, Welcome in every clime as breath of flowers, It transmutes aliens into trusting friends, And gives its owner passport round the globe."
"Their accents firm and loud in conversation, Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp and quick Showed them prepared on proper provocation To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick! And for that very reason it is said They were so very courteous and well-bred."
"When the king was horsed thore, <Launcelot lookys he upon, How courtesy was in him more Than ever was in any mon."
"In thy discourse, if thou desire to please; All such is courteous, useful, new, or wittie: Usefulness comes by labour, wit by ease; Courtesie grows in court; news in the citie."
"Shepherd, I take thy word, And trust thy honest offer'd courtesy, Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds With smoky rafters, than in tap'stry halls, And courts of princes."
"The thorny point Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show Of smooth civility."
"The Retort Courteous."
"Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant Can tickle where she wounds!"
"The mirror of all courtesy."
"I am the very pink of courtesy."
"That's too civil by half."
"High erected thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy."
"He was the mildest manner'd man That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat."
"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."
"We ought to esteem him alone an agreeable and good-natured man, who, in his daily intercourse with others, behaves in such a manner as friends usually behave to each other. For as a person of that rustic character appears, wherever he comes, like a mere stranger: so, on the contrary, a polite man, wherever he goes, seems as easy as if he were amongst his intimate friends and acquaintance."
"Etiquette...means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential."
"Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices."
"Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady."
"There is no outward mark of politeness that does not have a profound moral reason. The right education would be that which taught the outward mark and the moral reason together."
"He was so generally civil, that nobody thanked him for it."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Manners consist in pretending that we think as well of others as of ourselves. Manners are necessary because, as a rule, there is a pretence; when our good opinion of others is genuine, manners look after themselves. Perhaps instead of teaching manners, parents should teach the statistical probability that the person you are speaking to is just as good as you are. It is difficult to believe this; very few of us do, in our instincts, believe it. One's own ego seems so incomparably more sensitive, more perceptive, wiser and more profound than other people's. Yet there must be very few of whom this is true, and it is not likely that oneself is one of those few. There is nothing like viewing oneself statistically as a means both to good manners and to good morals."
"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."
"Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts."
"Good manners. They're forgotten in America. I think it's bad manners to stand around in public with ripped jeans and your hair in a mess, holding a Starbucks."
"Now as to politeness … I would venture to call it benevolence in trifles."
"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."
"Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others."
"Das Betragen ist ein Spiegel in welchem jeder sein Bild zeigt."
"The mildest manners with the bravest mind."
"My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle."
"We call it only pretty Fanny's way."
"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."
"Quæ fuerant vitia mores sunt."
"Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water."
"Ecrivez les injures sur le sable, Mais les bienfaits sur le marbre."
"Fit for the mountains and the barb'rous caves, Where manners ne'er were preach'd."
"Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere."
"Ut homo est, ita morem geras."
"Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit."
"You ought to regulate your manner of behaviour towards others, not according to your own humour, but agreeably to the pleasure and inclination of those with whom you converse."
"You hear him, ma'am?" said Mr. Pluck, looking round; "you hear the unimpeachable testimony of my friend Pyke—that reminds me—formalities, formalities, must not be neglected in civilized society. Pyke—Mrs. Nickleby."
"It must be admitted that the laws of etiquette and social politeness are much more clearly laid down, and much better observed by all classes of Hindus, even by the lowest, than they are by people of corresponding social position in Europe."
"The stereotyped style of cultic representations was well known as early as the Neolithic age, but the stiffly ceremonial forms of courtly art are absolutely new and come into prominence here for the first time in the history of human culture. They reflect the rule of a higher, superindividual social order, of a world which owes its greatness and splendour to the favour of the king. They are anti-individualistic, static and conventional... All the good things and the charms of life are connected, for the privileged members of this society, with their separation from the other classes, and all the maxims which they follow assume more or less the character of rules of decorum and etiquette. This decorum and etiquette, the whole self-stylization of the upper class, demand among other things that one does not allow oneself to be portrayed as one really is, but according to how one must appear to conform with certain hallowed conventions, remote from reality and the present time. Etiquette is the highest law not merely for the ordinary mortal, but also for the king, and in the imagination of this society even the gods accept the forms of courtly ceremonial."
"Etiquette is what you are doing and saying when people are looking and listening. What you are thinking is your business."
"All etiquette is local etiquette."
"The broad etiquette rule is that other people exist."
"In Städten glaubt man, es gehöre zum guten Tone, nicht einmal zu wissen, wer in demselben Hause wohnt."
"Dear Miss Manners: What about Easter? I suppose you have etiquette rules that apply to Easter Day? Gentle Reader: Certainly, and when the Day of Judgment comes, Miss Manners will have etiquette rules to apply to that, as well."
"Etiquette can be at the same time a means of approaching people and of staying clear of them."
"Etiquette is a set of rules people use so they can be rude to each other in public."
"POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy."
"Take care never to speak what you have not weighed and pondered beforehand; nor interject your own words on the spur of the moment and in the midst of another’s; for you must listen and converse in turn, with set times for speech and for silence."
"Politeness and a sense of honor have this advantage: we bestow them on others without losing a thing."
"Politeness, however, acts the lady's-maid to our thoughts ; and they are washed, dressed, curled, rouged, and perfumed, before they are presented to the public"
"What is a nice guy? Most people think the opposite of a nice guy is an asshole. And that's why they cling to the nice guy identity so strongly, because they think “I don't want to be an asshole so I'm gonna be a nice guy”. But I think that the opposite of a nice guy is someone who is clear and direct about what they want - who's able to set boundaries; someone who isn't ashamed of their sexuality; someone who isn't afraid to be seen as a bad guy; someone who does the right thing - not the thing that's easiest. And this is a powerful question to ask, because now we're asking what is a nice guy. I don't think it's someone who's kind and has a genuine desire to be generous. I think a nice guy is a set of manipulative behaviors that many men use to get their needs met. Now there's nothing wrong with wanting intimacy, with wanting love, with wanting connection and desire and respect from other men. But the real problem comes when men want these things, but they're not able to communicate that they want these things. So they give something else! Hoping, wondering, waiting, that they'll get their needs met without ever actually stating what it is that they want. And this is a really toxic way to live, because you're constantly stressed and frustrated that people in your life aren't giving you what you want: Women aren't giving you sex; men may not be giving you respect; your family's not giving you love; I'm not giving you attention and instead of confronting that you just keep being nicer and nicer and nicer hoping that they will subliminally understand what your needs are. The three main strategies or symptoms of nice guy syndrome are 1) avoiding confrontation. The nice guys are terrified to be put under the heat they're afraid to be truly seen so they avoid confrontation at all costs. The second one is giving with an underhanded intention to get something in return that they will never admit giving to get. And the third one is seeking approval. Now again there's nothing wrong with seeking approval but it's the way that defines what kind of man you are. Masculinity is something that can be toxic. It is something that many men grow up seeing the negative effects of and they don't want to be part of that who saw a bully at school and thought “I don't want to be like that”, who saw someone abuse a woman or maybe had that dad who was really rude or wasn't there. And they thought “I don't want to treat women like that”. It's really easy for us to look at the negative expressions of masculine energy - bullying, war, rape, violence, totalitarian fascist regimes and think “I don't want to be that kind of man so I'm gonna not be a man, I'm gonna shy away from all elements of masculinity I want to define myself as the antithesis to all those negative things”. But in the process of doing that, we throw out what really makes us men in all of the powerful masculine expressions of our energy. Masculinity can be all those negative things, sure, but could also be standing up for what you believe in, standing up against a bully, it can mean leadership and it can mean believing in someone when they don't believe in themselves having this strength to support those around you who are weak."
"If one has good manners, one may attain the same level of merit as those who spend their nights in prayer."
"Christian piety annihilates the egotism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it."
"Politeness is a tacit agreement that people’s miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made a subject of reproach."
"[T]he age of chivalry is gone.—That of sophisters, œconomists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."
"A single knight could impart, according to his judgment, the character which he received; and the warlike sovereigns of Europe derived more glory from this personal distinction, than from the lustre of their diadem. This ceremony, of which some traces may be found in Tacitus and the woods of Germany, was in its origin simple and profane; the candidate, after some previous trial, was invested with his sword and spurs; and his cheek or shoulder were touched with a slight blow, as an emblem of the last affront, which it was lawful for him to endure. But superstition mingled in every public and private action of life; in the holy wars, it sanctified the profession of arms; and the order of chivalry was assimilated in its rights and privileges to the sacred orders of priesthood."
"As the champion of God and the ladies (I blush to unite such discordant names), he devoted himself to speak the truth; to maintain the right; to protect the distressed; to practise courtesy, a virtue less familiar to the ancients; to pursue the infidels; to despise the allurements of ease and safety; and to vindicate in every perilous adventure the honour of his character. The abuse of the same spirit provoked the illiterate knight to disdain the arts of industry and peace; to esteem himself the sole judge and avenger of his own injuries; and proudly to neglect the laws of civil society and military discipline. Yet the benefits of this institution, to refine the temper of Barbarians, and to infuse some principles, of faith, justice, and humanity, were strongly felt, and have been often observed. The asperity of national prejudice was softened; and the community of religion and arms spread a similar colour and generous emulation over the face of Christendom."
"What are the typical virtues of Chivalry in its purified and ideal form? We have seen that Chivalry was a compound of three elements, viz. war, religion, and gallantry. Each of the three respectively emphasized and exalted three qualities as essential to the true knight. The three primary virtues of Chivalry, based on its military character, were courage, loyalty and generosity. The three secondary virtues, derived from religion, were fidelity to the Church, obedience, and chastity. The three tertiary virtues, social in their nature, were courtesy, humility, and beneficence. On the side of theory and principle, at any rate, Chivalry stressed the duties and obligations of knighthood, rather than its rights and privileges. It held up a high standard of honour, and required it to be maintained without any diminution. It insisted on a truthfulness, a trustworthiness, an adhesion to plighted word, a fidelity to engagements, from which no allurement of advantage and no plea of necessity could cause any deviation. It required a liberality which lavished largesses, even though they reduced the donor to poverty. It demanded a regular observance of the offices of religion; a full acceptance of the Catholic faith; a complete submission in things spiritual to the authority of the clergy, and, as a council of perfection for the elect, a respect for marriage vows. It instilled a courtesy (courtotsie), a code of fine manners based on heartfelt consideration and genuine regard which immensely added to the delight of the intercourse of social life."
"Above all, it inculcated an ideal of social service; service without remuneration; service, however humble its nature, free from degradation or disparagement; service of the weak by the strong; service of the poor by the wealthy; service of the lowly by the high."
"The medievalists of our day are hardly favorable to chivalry. Combing the records, in which chivalry is, indeed, little mentioned, they have succeeded in presenting a picture of the Middle Ages in which economic and social points of view are so dominant that one tends at times to forget that, next to religion, chivalry was the strongest of the ideas that filled the minds and the hearts of those men of another age."
"Through most of the heyday of chivalry the crusade had been regarded as the formal epitome of chivalrous activity."
"Chivalry essentially was the secular code of honour of a martially oriented aristocracy."
"Medieval chivalry was more an outlook than a doctrine, more a lifestyle than an explicit ethical code. It embraced both ideology and social practice. Among the qualities central to it were loyalty, generosity, dedication, courage and courtesy, qualities which were esteemed by the military class and which contemporaries believed the ideal knight should possess. Chivalry meant different things to different people; like beauty, it was found in the eye of the beholder. For the heralds, whose primary task was to recognise coats of arms, its essence lay in the display of armorial charges on a shield, in the attesting of ancestral descent through the multiplication of quarterings. For the clergy, whose concern was to direct knighthood to the Church's own ends, it was more a religious vocation, the responsibility of knights to wage war in a just cause, pre-eminently the recovery of the Holy Places from the infidel. For the legists, whose goal was to bring order to the brutal realities of war, it was a legal construct intended to curb military excess, a set of moral guidelines to distinguish proper behaviour from improper. For the writers of romances – lovers of stories but also moral instructors – it was about the attainment of virtue through ennobling feats of arms to win the favour of a lady. For others again, the knights themselves, it was about what Sir Thomas Malory in the fifteenth century called "dedys [deeds] full actuall" – fighting on horseback, jousting in tournament lists and the achievement of manliness through prowess."
"Chivalry!—why, maiden, it is the nurse of pure and high affection—the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant—Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword."
"We must not confound chivalry with the feudal system. The feudal system may be called the real life of the period of which we are treating, possessing its advantages and inconveniences, its virtues and its vices. Chivalry, on the contrary, is the ideal world, such as it existed in the imaginations of the Romance writers. Its essential character is devotion to woman and to honour."
"The more closely we look into history, the more clearly shall we perceive that the system of chivalry is an invention almost entirely poetical. It is impossible to distinguish the countries in which it is said to have prevailed. It is always represented as distant from us both in time and place; and whilst the contemporary historians give us a clear, detailed, and complete account of the vices of the court and the great, of the ferocity or corruption of the nobles, and of the servility of the people, we are astonished to find the poets, after a long lapse of time, adorning the very same ages with the most splendid fictions of grace, virtue, and loyalty. The Romance writers of the twelfth century placed the age of chivalry in the time of Charlemagne. The period when those writers existed, is the time pointed out by Francis I. At the present day, we imagine we can still see chivalry flourishing in the persons of Du Guesclin and Bayard, under Charles V. and Francis I. But when we come to examine either the one period or the other, although we find in each some heroic spirits, are forced to confess that it is necessary to antedate the age of chivalry, at least three or four centuries before any period of authentic history."