"You had better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily. Manner is all, in everything: it is by manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Stanhope%2C_4th_Earl_of_Chesterfield