A mission could be defined as an image of a desired state that you want to get to. Once fully seen, it will inspire you to act, fuel your imagination and determine your behavior.
—Charles A. Garfield (b.1944) American Psychologist
What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir.
—Unknown
Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies, and no science of behavior can change the essential nature of man, even though both sciences yield technologies with a vast power to manipulate the subject matters.
—B. F. Skinner (1904–90) American Psychologist, Social Philosopher, Inventor, Author
Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
The wolf changes his coat, but not his disposition.
—Common Proverb
Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
The world of the happy is quite different from that of the unhappy.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
Many people love in themselves what they hate in others.
—E. F. Schumacher (1911–77) German Mathematician, Economist
It’s no use growing older if you only learn new ways of misbehaving yourself.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870–1916) British Short Story Writer, Satirist, Historian
The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease; the manner of a gentleman, ease without freedom.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
To be a successful hostess, when guest arrive say, “At last!” and when they leave say, “So soon!”
—Unknown
Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A man’s manners are the mirror in which he shows his portrait.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
A man’s own good-breeding is the best security against other people’s ill-manners. It carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill-breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid. No man ever said a pert thing to the Duke of Marlborough. No man ever said a civil one to Sir Robert Walpole.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
It is the unseen and the spiritual in people that determines the outward and the actual.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Gravity must be natural and simple; there must be urbanity and tenderness in it.—A man must not formalize on everything.—He who does so is a fool; and a grave fool is, perhaps, more injurious than a light fool.
—Richard Cecil
Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose that they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can’t tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion.
—Noam Chomsky (b.1928) American Linguist, Social Critic
Meat makes, and clothes shapes, but manners makes a man.
—Scottish Proverb
Politeness is the slow poison of collaboration.
—Edwin H. Land (1909–91) American Inventor, Physicist
There are peculiar ways in men, which discover what they are, through the most subtle feints and closest disguise. A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
What a rare gift is that of manners! How difficult to define; how much more difficult to impart!—Better for a man to possess them, than to have wealth, beauty, or talent; they will more than supply all.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire of appearing so.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man,—you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind,—I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher