Politeness Quotes - page 2

I smiled back, the importance of manners, my mother always said, is inversely related to how inclined one is to use them, or, in other words, sometimes politeness is all that stands between oneself and madness. (Nicole Krauss)
I hate being moved. I hate that man who came in. So self-righteous, so cruel. He made fun of me, that's why I cried. You never did that. You led me into temptation by your - politeness. View quote
Peter Ustinov
You can do a lot more with weapons and politeness than just politeness. View quote
Vladimir Putin
The ultimate politeness in art consists of speaking only to those who are able to uncover and measure its relationships. Anything else is symbolic, and symbolism is merely transcendental imagery. View quote
Jean Cocteau
My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness. View quote
F. Scott Fitzgerald
My father believed in toughness, honesty, politeness and being on time. All very important lessons. View quote
Roger Moore
Callousness and insolence bring to bare unanimous social condemnation, while the simple efforts of politeness are admired; even in those who are otherwise despised. View quote
Bryant H. McGill
Courteousness is consideration for others; politeness is the method used to deliver such considerations. View quote
Bryant H. McGill
It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy. View quote
Khaleda Zia
Punctuality is the politeness of kings. View quote
Louis XVIII of France
The only true source of politeness is consideration. (William Gilmore Simms)
Ah! why do women condescend to receive a degree of attention and respect from strangers different from that reciprocation of civility which the dictates of humanity and the politeness of civilization authorize between man and man? And why do they not discover, when, "in the noon of beauty's power", that they are treated like queens only to be deluded by hollow respect. Confined, then, in cages like the feathered race, they have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and stalk with mock majesty from perch to perch. View quote
Mary Wollstonecraft
Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice. View quote
John Adams
Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice. View quote
John Adams
In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named...but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
If for example I had some idea, which as it turned out would be quite wrong, was going off of the tangent, Watson would tell me in no uncertain terms this was nonsense, and vice-versa. If he would have some idea I didn't like, and I would say so, this would shake his thinking about, and draw him back again. And in fact it is one of the requirements for collaborations of this sort, is you must be perfectly candid, one might almost say rude, to the person you're working with. It's useless working with somebody who is either much too junior than yourself or much too senior because then politeness creeps in. And this is the end of all real collaboration in science. View quote
Francis Crick
I suppose it is written that any one who sets up for a bit of a philosopher, must contradict himself to his very face. For here have I fairly talked myself into thinking that we have the whole thing before us at last; that there is no answer to the mystery, except that there are as many as you please; that there is no centre to the maze because, like the famous sphere, its centre is everywhere; and that agreeing to differ with every ceremony of politeness, is the only "one undisturbed song of pure concent” to which we are ever likely to lend our musical voices. View quote
Robert Louis Stevenson
Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They're underused. View quote
Tommy Lee Jones
Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth-breather there is. (Garrison Keillor)
After this, having invited over to him all persons whatsoever that were famous for valour in foreign nations, he began to augment the number of his domestics, and introduced such politeness into his court, as people of the remotest countries thought worthy of their imitation. So that there was not a nobleman who thought himself of any consideration, unless his clothes and arms were made in the same fashion as those of Arthur's knights. View quote
Geoffrey of Monmouth
The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French had shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly. View quote
Julia Child
Good-breeding, or true politeness, is the art of showing men by external signs the internal regard we have for them. It arises from good sense, improved by good company. It must be acquired by practice and not by books. View quote
Stonewall Jackson
...when I went out I tried to push the door instead of pulling it. 'Pull it, mate,' said someone, and I had to obey. I nearly tripped over a footscraper and, the door closed, had the impression of loud laughter. The vile blunt-razor-blade wind blew hard from my sister's house. I felt ashamed and furious. In the East there was politeness, doors opened the right way, there were no footscrapers. View quote
Anthony Burgess