thoughts on manners

A man's manners are a mirror, in which he shows his likeness to the intelligent observer.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Good manners are part of good morals.
- Richard Whately

What a rare gift, by the by, is that of good manners! How difficult to define, how much more difficult to impart! Better for a man to possess them than wealth, beauty, or talent; they will more than supply all.
- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Better were it to be unborn than to be ill-bred.
-Sir Walter Raleigh

A man's worth is estimated in this world according to his conduct.
- Jean de La Bruyère

• It is wonderful how much talent runs into manners.
• Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Civility is but a desire to receive civility, and to be esteemed polite.
• Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.

- François de la Rochefoucauld

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
- Horace Mann

Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in great measure, the laws depend. The law touches us here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give us 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