Judith Martin Quotes - Page 2

Ideological differences are no excuse for rudeness.

It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.

There is nothing like a good friend to help you out when you are not in trouble.

We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.

Part of the skill of saying no is to shut up afterward and not babble on, offering material for an argument.

There is no etiquette rule that decrees one must give out personal information to anyone who asks.

Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.

Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without a comment is a wonderful social grace ... Children who have the habit of constantly correcting should be stopped before they grow up to drive spouses and everyone else crazy by interrupting stories to say, 'No, dear -- it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.

Manners require showing consideration of all human beings, not just the ones to whom one is close.

We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility.

The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.

When you're in love, you put up with things that, when you're out of love you cite.

everyone old enough to have a secret is entitled to have some place to keep it.

When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.

If you put together all the ingredients that naturally attract children - sex, violence, revenge, spectacle and vigorous noise - what you have is grand opera.

There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.

the obligation to express gratitude deepens with procrastination. The longer you wait, the more effusive must be the thanks.

I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.

People think, mistakenly, that etiquette means you have to suppress your differences. On the contray, etiquette is what enables you to deal with them; it gives you a set of rules.

Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons.

When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.

The idea that people can behave naturally, without resorting to an artificial code tacitly agreed upon by their society, is as silly as the idea that they can communicate by a spoken language without commonly accepted semantic and grammatical rules.

'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty.

It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.

It is not rude to turn off your telephone by switching it on to an answering machine, which is cheaper and less disruptive than ripping it out of the wall. Those who are offended because they cannot always get through when they seek, at their own convenience, to barge in on people are suffering from a rude expectation.