Manners Quotes

Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Manners Quotes from famous authors such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Joe Calzaghe, Derek Blasberg, Benjamin Franklin, Adelbert von Chamisso. Let’s look at these pieces of wisdom. We definitely have something to learn from them!

1
Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
2
I like to give my kids the life I didn’t have – they go to an excellent school; they have nice clothes, money for shopping. I’m quite generous with them, but they have fantastic manners – they’re not spoilt.
Joe Calzaghe
3
I grew up in the Midwest, so I have sort of an honorable moral code. But 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.’
Derek Blasberg
4
Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.
Benjamin Franklin
5
This man, although he appeared so humble and embarrassed in his air and manners, and passed so unheeded, had inspired me with such a feeling of horror by the unearthly paleness of his countenance, from which I could not avert my eyes, that I was unable longer to endure it.
Adelbert von Chamisso
6
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.
Robert Rainy
7
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.
M. J. Rose
8
I dreamed my way into Lincoln and the details that moved me – his lack of education or ‘civilized’ manners and his deep connection to all humankind.
Jerome Charyn
9
He combines the manners of a Marquis with the morals of a Methodist.
William Gilbert
10
I don’t accept bad manners, so all my grandchildren are very well behaved, just like my kids.
Maye Musk
11
I wanted to do something in the style of a comedy of manners.
Amy Heckerling
12
Good manners don’t cost nothing.
Lemmy
13
I want to see what this baby’s going to be into; how I can participate in his interests. You know, teach him things, see the manners that he will inhabit from both of us and see the first smile and what he’s gonna say first. Hopefully ‘dada’ not ‘mama.’
Artem Chigvintsev
14
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
George Orwell
15
High rank and soft manners may not always belong to a true heart.
Anthony Trollope
16
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.
W. Kamau Bell
17
My grandmother used to teach me that it’s bad manners to invite yourself to somebody’s house.
Andrey Arshavin
18
There’s a real intense thing about manners in the South, a real prescribed way to be a woman.
Mary Wiseman
19
Don’t misunderstand good manners for passivity.
Isaac Hanson
20
Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
Jonathan Swift
21
A lot of people would be embarrassed to admit that they were on ‘Barney’, but I embrace the fact. I just had such a wonderful time doing that show. I learned what a camera and prop is, and all that. I learned my manners too, so I guess that’s a good thing!
Selena Gomez
22
Not to be purple, but I’ve never been a ‘bad boy’ kind of girl. I like manners.
Toks Olagundoye
23
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.
Danny Boyle
24
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.
Rachael Stirling
25
I could start a war in 30 seconds. But some countries spend 100 years trying to find peace. Just like good manners, peace has to be learned.
Sylvester Stallone
26
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.
Nancy Friday
27
I’ve met a lot of military men in my time. After they retire, they are still extremely game. They dress perfectly and have impeccable manners. They always end up as secretaries of golf clubs. I have great admiration for them.
David Jason
28
Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.
Laurence Sterne
29
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.
Bono
30
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
Mary Wollstonecraft
31
Respect goes a long way when you carry yourself a certain way and show manners when you first meet someone. If you do that, then it’s hard for somebody not to like you.
Lamar Odom
32
Song Joong-ki is known for his sincerity and manners. He is younger than me, but I thought I learned many things from him.
Song Hye-kyo
33
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?
Dakota Fanning
34
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.
Letitia Baldrige
35
Women take great care of themselves in France. It’s a culture dedicated to making women beautiful and to manners.
Alan Furst
36
There are few things more American than falling back on the language of race when what we’re really talking about is class or, more accurate still, manners, values and taste.
Thomas Chatterton Williams
37
I always tried to be the perfect little girl. Always tried to have the perfect little manners. Never wanted to displease my parents.
Ann-Margret
38
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.
Geoff Dyer
39
It doesn’t matter how many A-levels you have, what kind of a degree you have, if you have good manners, people will like you.
Kate Reardon
40
Most women find a man with good manners sexy.
Candice Swanepoel
41
There’s a thing that happens to Midwesterners – we spend a lot of time talking about having a different set of rules about manners. I don’t know about ethics, but certainly about manners, what you would say and what you wouldn’t say. And that is not very East coast.
Theresa Rebeck
42
The ministers of Christ should possess refinement. All uncouth manners, attitudes and gestures should be discarded, and they should encourage in themselves humble dignity of bearing.
Ellen G. White
43
The people were simpler, more peaceable and friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown.
Henry Walter Bates
44
Don’t keep your good manners to the end another time, but begin with them.
Apollonius of Tyana
45
It is possible to have good manners and be funny at the same time. Ronnie Barker and I proved that.
Ronnie Corbett
46
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.
Letitia Baldrige
47
I remember my father, who was ‘somebody’ in the synagogue, bringing home with him one of the poor men who waited outside to be chosen to share the Passover meal. These patriarchal manners I remember well, although there was about them an air of bourgeois benevolence which was somewhat comic.
Jacob Epstein
48
My parents brought me up to speak the way I speak, to hold my head up high, to know wrong from right and to have manners.
Naseem Hamed
49
A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.
Henry James
50
Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.
R. Buckminster Fuller
51
The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones.
Wendell Willkie
52
This self-congratulatory notion Americans have that their country is Number One is borne of ignorance and bad manners.
Bryan Cranston
53
The most fascinating person is always the one of the most winning manners; not the one of greatest physical beauty.
Orison Swett Marden
54
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.
Zosia Mamet
55
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.
Judith Martin
56
Taste is more to do with manners than appearances. Taste is both myth and reality; it is not a style.
Stephen Bayley
57
Beware of a man with manners.
Eudora Welty
58
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.
David Ogilvy
59
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.
Alexander Armstrong
60
Politeness is half good manners and half good lying.
Mary Wilson Little
61
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.
Tom Stoppard
62
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.
Alexander Gilkes
63
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?’
Cy Twombly
64
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.
Al Smith
65
The news media is so quick to pick up tragic stories of imperiled children that it seems like there are more terrible events today than ever before – when in fact it’s quite the opposite. It is, in all manners possible to calculate, the safest time in the history of civilization to be a kid.
Gever Tulley
66
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.
Usain Bolt
67
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.
Orison Swett Marden
68
You can get through life with bad manners, but it’s easier with good manners.
Lillian Gish
69
I always open doors for women. It’s just good manners.
Lemmy
70
God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.
William Wilberforce
71
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.
Lynn Coady
72
It’s so important to have manners and treat people from all walks of life the way they should be treated.
David Beckham
73
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.
Jason Alexander
74
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.
Philip Pullman
75
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.
Gary Vaynerchuk
76
Let’s not confuse traditional behaviours with good manners. The definition of etiquette is gender neutral – it simply means we strive at all times to ensure a person in our company feels at ease.
Lynn Coady
77
Thank goodness I was brought up with the grounding of my parents, and taught manners.
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
78
The Masters is a sell-out annually, and even the scalpers mind their manners.
Dan Jenkins
79
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.
Alexis de Tocqueville
80
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.
Edward Hirsch
81
There are two elements to nailing a job interview: form and substance. ‘Form’ describes the outer layer of your character – your manners, your demeanor, your social skills. ‘Substance’ describes the inner core of your character – your intellect, your empathy, your creativity.
Neil Blumenthal
82
Being a parent does not give you an excuse for bad manners.
Rosalind Wiseman
83
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.
Jerry Hall
84
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.
Mark E. Smith
85
Conventional manners are a kind of literacy test for the alien who comes among us.
Katharine Elizabeth Fullerton Gerould
86
I find it upsetting to see the erosion of manners. It’s very scary. Where are the ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous?’
Julian Lennon
87
Prithee don’t screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners.
Colley Cibber
88
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.
Simone Weil
89
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.
Mark Fisher
90
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.
David Rakoff
91
I don’t do plays without jokes anymore. I’ve retired from those plays. I think it’s bad manners to invite people to sit in the dark for two and a half hours and not tell them the joke.
Bill Nighy
92
Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.
Emily Post
93
I don’t like people’s table manners. That really puts you off eating food.
Lemmy
94
Seattle is a liberal city, its politics not so much blue (in the American, not the British, sense) as deep ultramarine, and its manners are studiously polite.
Jonathan Raban
95
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.
Drew Gilpin Faust
96
Good manners are appreciated as much as bad manners are abhorred.
Bryant H. McGill
97
I get more disgusted with men all the time – particularly traveling Americans. They start out on a trip to Europe and never bother to pack a dinner jacket. This is not only stupid – it’s bad manners.
Elsa Schiaparelli
98
Manners are nothing more than thinking about somebody else.
Letitia Baldrige
99
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.
Sydney Pollack
100
I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.
Og Mandino
101
Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.
Aleister Crowley
102
The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.
Fred Astaire
103
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.
Joseph Joubert
104
Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
Honore de Balzac
105
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.
Mats Wilander
106
The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated.
Mercy Otis Warren
107
Lack of etiquette and manners is a huge turn off. Men who don’t behave decently are irritating. Also, I don’t like guys who show off. When will guys realize that girls hate showoffs!
Shraddha Kapoor
108
I have always thought you could take the measure of a man by his sports manners – that is to say, the way in which he conducts himself on the playing field, or even over a game of chess or cards.
Graydon Carter
109
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.
Kevin Knox
110
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.
Caroline Polachek
111
I was brought up in a way that when you’re at a dinner party, you don’t grab a chip unless it’s been offered to everyone else. It’s the manners of being brought up by English parents.
Hugh Jackman
112
I don’t ever knock anybody; that’s bad manners.
Letitia Baldrige
113
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.
Peter Drucker
114
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.
Robert Grosseteste
115
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
Clarence Thomas
116
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?’
Cy Twombly
117
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.
Jo Frost
118
Friends and good manners will carry you where money won’t go.
Margaret Walker
119
There is so much bad manners and oafishness in large corporations.
Letitia Baldrige
120
Sometimes you need to step away from the game. I’ve had to do that in different manners in my career.
Diana Taurasi
121
Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people’s bad manners.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.