99 Quotes On Manners And Respect

In an era where digital interactions often overshadow face-to-face communication, the timeless virtues of manners and respect hold more significance than ever. These qualities shape our interactions and define our relationships, leaving lasting impressions on those we encounter. Our curated collection of the top 99 quotes on manners and respect serves as a gentle reminder of the power and importance of treating others with kindness and consideration. Whether you're seeking inspiration, guidance, or a resurgence of these fundamental values, these quotes offer wisdom from various cultures, philosophies, and time periods. Let these words rekindle the grace and dignity that come from respectful and courteous behavior, enriching both your life and the lives of those around you.

1. “It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

2. “Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.” - Amy Vanderbilt

3. “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.” - Robert A. Heinlein

4. “The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.” - Oscar Wilde

5. “Life is short, but there is always time enough for courtesy.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

6. “I'm making a listI'm making a list of things I must sayFor politeness,And goodness and kindness and gentlenessSweetness and rightness:HelloPardon meHow are you?Excuse meBless youMay I?Thank youGoodbyeIf you know some that I've forgot,Please stick them in you eye!” - Shel Silverstein

7. “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

8. “The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.” - Khalil Gibran

9. “Manners are the ability to put someone else at their ease...by turning any answer into another question.” - Tina Brown

10. “Always speak politely to an enraged dragon.” - Steven Brust

11. “Everything in this room is edible. Even I'm edible. But, that would be called canibalism. It is looked down upon in most societies.” - Tim Burton

12. “I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.” - J.D. Salinger

13. “I was raised right — I talk about people behind their backs. It's called manners.” - Kathy Griffin

14. “Civility, it is said, means obeying the unenforceable.” - Ellen Goodman

15. “A hat should be taken off when greeting a lady, and left off the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.” - P.J. O'Rourke

16. “While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice our local destination. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world.” - John Adams

17. “Nobody believes that the man who says, 'Look, lady, you wanted equality,' to explain why he won't give up his seat to a pregnant woman carrying three grocery bags, a briefcase, and a toddler is seized with the symbolism of idealism.” - Judith Martin

18. “One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.” - Judith Martin

19. “Nowadays, we never allow ourselves the convenience of being temporarily unavailable, even to strangers. With telephone and beeper, people subject themselves to being instantly accessible to everyone at all times, and it is the person who refuses to be on call, rather than the importunate caller, who is considered rude.” - Judith Martin

20. “...when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and of having to compensate - with quite elaborate behaviours = for the sudden half-disappearance of the person we were just speaking to. 'Go ahead!' we say. 'Don't mind us! Oh look, here's a magazine I can read!' When the call is over, other rituals come into play, to minimise the disruption caused and to restore good feeling.” - Lynne Truss

21. “Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.” - Patrick Rothfuss

22. “Handsome is as handsome does” - J.R.R. Tolkien

23. “Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignorance.” - Sa'di S. Shaikh Muslihu-D-Din

24. “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

25. “Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners” - Laurence Sterne

26. “Passion and courtesy are two polar opposite traits that serve to balance each other into a full-blooded whole.Without socialization, passion is a crude barbarian, and without passion, the elegant and polite are dead.Allow both passion and courtesy into your life in equal measure, and be complete.” - Vera Nazarian

27. “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

28. “Few things are more agreeable than the spectacle of a man who loses his temper; we should be grateful to such people for providing us with moments of often unsullied delight.” - Harold Nicolson

29. “As a Texan, I say ma'm and sir to my age contemporaries and open doors for anyone that I can. This goes for men, too, though it is appreciated when they beat me to it and disappointing when they don't.” - Tiffany Madison

30. “Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you.” - Elsie de Wolfe

31. “Oh Tigger, where are your manners?""I don’t know, but I bet they’re having more fun than I am.” - A.A. Milne

32. “Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open.” - Judith Martin

33. “Fashion is neither moral or immoral, but it is for rebuilding the morale.” - Karl Lagerfeld

34. “It is good to dress in fair clothes to dine with friends. It honors your host, if you are a guest; and your guest if you are a host. And both adorn the feast, and so celebrate the gifts of the world.” - Alison Croggon

35. “Arriving late was a way of saying that your own time was more valuable than the time of the person who waited for you.” - Karen Joy Fowler

36. “And now, gentlemen, like your manners, I must leave you.” - Dylan Thomas

37. “I believe that treating other people well is a lost art.” - Tim Gunn

38. “It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.” - Georgette Heyer

39. “It's the height of bad manners to sleep with somebody less than three times.” - Mark Boxer

40. “Firekeeper still could not understand the human penchant for eating in company. Even less so, she could not understand the human desire to combine business and meals.True, a wolf pack shared a kill, but not from any great desire to do so—rather because any who departed the scene would be unlikely to get a share... She struggled...not to bolt her food and almost always remembered that growling when a person spoke to you was not a proper response.” - Jane Lindskold

41. “You cannot escape that you are a woman,” she began.“I wish I could,” Firekeeper muttered, but Elise continued as if she hadn’t heard.“Since you cannot, you cannot escape the expectations that our society and our class places upon women.”“Why?” Firekeeper said querulously.“...Consider,” she offered, “what you told me about learning to see at night so that you could hunt with the wolves. Learning to wear a gown, to walk gracefully, to eat politely…”“I do that!”“You’re learning,” Elise admitted, “but don’t change the subject. All of these are ways of learning to see in the dark.”“Maybe,” Firekeeper said, her tone unconvinced.“Can you climb a tree?”“Yes.”“Swim?”“Yes!” This second affirmative was almost indignant.“And these skills let you go places that you could not go without them.”Stubborn silence. Elise pressed her point.“Why do you like knowing how to shoot a bow?”“It lets me kill farther,” came the answer, almost in a growl.“And using a sword does the same?”“Yes.”“Let me tell you, Firekeeper, knowing a woman’s arts can keep you alive, let you invade private sanctums, even help you to subdue your enemies. If you don’t know those arts, others who do will always have an advantage over you.”“All this from wearing a gown that tangles your feet?” - Jane Lindskold

42. “The line between the public life and the private life has been erased, due to the rapid decline of manners and courtesy. There is a certain crudeness and crassness that has suddenly become accepted behavior, even desirable.” - Fannie Flagg

43. “-Mikhail?...Try making suggestions next time, or just plain asking. You go do whatever it is you're doing, and I'll go search you extensive library for a book on manners.-You will not find it.-Why am I not surprised?” - Christine Feehan

44. “Being classy is my teenage rebellion.” - Rebecca McKinsey

45. “Wouldn't he know without being asked?' said Polly. 'I've no doubt he would,' said the Horse (still with his mouth full). 'But I've a sort of an idea he likes to be asked.” - C.S. Lewis

46. “Xingu!" she scoffed. "Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more about it than she did—unprepared though we were—that made Osric Dane so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to everybody!” - Edith Wharton

47. “How very kind of her, ' I said. 'I must remember to send her a card.'I'd send her a card alright. It would be the Ace of Spades, and I'd mail it anonymously from somewhere other than Bishop's Lacey.” - Alan Bradley

48. “We have rules One-Ear." The man smiled faintly at Mrs. Francis. "Ladies are not to be hacked apart with swords. It reflects badly on pirates in general and on our outfit in particular.” - Sean Cullen

49. “A mans manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

50. “O, Times! O, Manners! It is my opinionThat you are changing sadly your dominion I mean the reign of manners hath long ceased,For men have none at all, or bad at least;And as for times, altho' 'tis said by manyThe "good old times" were far the worst of any,Of which sound Doctrine I believe each tittleYet still I think these worst a little.I've been a thinking -isn't that the phrase?-I like your Yankee words and Yankee ways -I've been a thinking, whether it were bestTo Take things seriously, Or all in jest” - Edgar Allan Poe

51. “There is not a man of common sense who would not chuse to be agreeable in company; and yet, strange as it may seem, very few are” - The Town and Country Magazine. vol. 11, 1779

52. “Manners, you see, come down to a single principle: talk of nothing that might actually prove interesting.” - Meredith Duran

53. “I threw an etiquette party and served nothing but beans and sparkling water. The topic of conversation was ‘excuse me’.” - Bauvard

54. “And Zach was taking his jacket off and draping it around my shoulders, which (according to Liz, who double checked with Macey) is the single-sexiest thing a guy can do.” - Ally Carter

55. “I liked that young man, did not you? There was something particularly pleasing about his manners, which I thought very easy and frank. He has an air of honest manliness, too, which, in these days of fribbles and counter-coxcombs, I own I find refreshing!” - Georgette Heyer

56. “She already told me that she doesn't have to be nice, so why do I? Because my mother raised me right? That's why wolves always win. Because the rest of us mind our manners and get devoured for our efforts.” - Sheryl J. Anderson

57. “A true gentleman is one that apologizes anyways, even though he has not offended a lady intentionally. He is in a class all of his own because he knows the value of a woman's heart.” - Shannon Alder

58. “You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.” - William S. Burroughs

59. “... not talking about things she doesn't understand to people who do or about things she does to people who don't.” - Frank Crowninshield

60. “Si uno hace algo incorrecto en la mesa con cierta arrogancia, como si supiera perfectamente que está haciendo lo que corresponde, puede salir del paso y nadie pensará que es grosero o que ha recibido una pobre educación. Pensarán que uno es original y muy ocurrente.” - Sylvia Plath

61. “Preserve me from such cordiality! It is like handling briar-roses and may-blossoms - bright enough to the eye, and outwardly soft to the touch, but you know there are thorns beneath, and every now and then you feel them too; and perhaps resent the injury by crushing them in till you have destroyed their power, though somewhat to the detriment of your own fingers.” - Anne Brontë

62. “Vijaya prefers to eat alone. Rob ushered her into the room and held a chair for her, then sat across from her. "Many Indians regard eating as something that should be done in private. Considering the table manners of some of our best people, one can see their point." Patricia Frances Rowell” - Patricia Frances Rowell

63. “E-mail has some magical ability to turn off the politeness gene in a human being.” - Jeff Bezos

64. “Do not descend, but rise above so ill-mannered a person.” - Mary Lydon Simonsen

65. “Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.” - Marian Wright Edelman

66. “Good manners open the closed doors; bad manners close the open doors!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

67. “Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of our generation you shall find.” - William Shakespeare

68. “Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he’d tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied.” - Charlaine Harris

69. “A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.” - Haruki Murakami

70. “The first rule of etiquette a boy learns when he's about to entersociety is that civility is due to all women. No provocation, nomatter how unjust and rudely delivered, can validate a man who failsto treat a woman with anything less than utmost courtesy."The boys hung on his every word. He glanced in her direction."I have met some incredibly unpleasant women, and I have never failedin this duty. But I must admit: your sister may prove my undoing.” - Ilona Andrews

71. “Wealth of good manners is what no one can steal from you. You can keep it with you wherever you go.” - Moazzam Shaikh

72. “Sydney tried — sometimes he really tried — but his default mindset didn’t have those kinds of manners. What he really meant was more like “Jacob, get over here or I’ll freeze your underwear.” Something like that.” - Rebecca McKinsey

73. “It is laughable how often good manners interfere with my survival.” - Andrew Levkoff

74. “Please stop,” I said politely—he was that big. One should always mind one’s manners around big things.” - Lish McBride

75. “You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn’t behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece.” - Catherynne M. Valente

76. “When I am alone, my table manners are rather piggish, but i suppose that's because I don't eat at a table, I eat at my desk. Which could be considered a table, except we tend to define things by their function, and this particular surface is a desk, so perhaps piggish is unfair.” - Kelli Jae Baeli

77. “He then bespattered the youth with abundance of that language which passes between country gentleman who embrace opposite sides of the question; with frequent applications to him to salute that part which is generally introduced into all controversies that arise among the lower orders of the English gentry at horse-races, cock-matches, and other public places. Allusions to this part are likewise often made for the sake of jest. And here, I believe, the wit is generally misunderstood. In reality, it lies in desiring another to kiss you a-- for having just before threatened ti kick his; for I have observed very accurately, that no one ever desires you to kick that which belongs to himself, nor offers to kiss this part in another.It may likewise seem surprizing that in the many thousand kind invitations of this sort, which every one who hath conversed with country gentlemen must have heard, no one, I believe, hath ever seen a single instance where the desire hath been complied with; - a great instance of their want of politeness; for in town nothing can be more common than for the finest gentlemen to perform this ceremony every day to their superiors, without having that favour once requested of them.” - Henry Fielding

78. “Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.” - Lynne Truss

79. “Gli uomini veri impazziscono per le ragazze che sanno dire di no. Gli stupidi si accontentano delle facili.” - Marilyn Monroe

80. “They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie.” - Lemony Snicket

81. “I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.” - Emma Donoghue

82. “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” - bell hooks

83. “Politeness [is] a sign of dignity, not subservience.” - Theodore Roosevelt

84. “A polite enemy is just as difficult to discredit, as a rude friend is to protect.” - Bryant McGill

85. “Courteousness is consideration for others; politeness is the method used to deliver such considerations.” - Bryant McGill

86. “Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man’s cruelty and baseness.” - Bryant McGill

87. “Good manners are appreciated as much as bad manners are abhorred.” - Bryant McGill

88. “No one is more insufferable than he who lacks basic courtesy.” - Bryant McGill

89. “لقد حدد رسول الإسلام الغاية الأولى من بعثته، والمنهاج المبين في دعوته بقوله إنما بعثت لأتمم مكارم الأخلاق” - محمد الغزالي

90. “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.” - Robert A. Heinlein

91. “والمتدين الذي يباشر بعض العبادات، ويبقى بعدها بادى الشر، كالح الوجه، قريب العداون كيف يحسب امرءاً تقيّاً؟” - محمد الغزالي

92. “Contrary to popular opinion, manners are not a luxury good that's interesting only to those who can afford to think about them. The essence of good manners is not exclusivity, nor exclusion of any kind, but sensitivity. To practice good manners is to confer upon others not just consideration but esteem; it's to bathe others in a commodity best described by noted speller Aretha Franklin.” - Henry Alford

93. “Be kind, for whenever kindness becomes part of something, it beautifies it. Whenever it is taken from something, it leaves it tarnished.” - Mohammad PBUH

94. “Good manners cost nothing” - E. Dantes

95. “For example, in Paris, if one desires to buy something, you enter the store and say "Good morning, sir" or "madam," depending on what is appropriate, you wait until you are greeted, you make polite chitchat about the weather or some such, and when the salesperson asks what they can do for you, then and only then do you bring up the vulgar business of the transaction you require.” - Craig Ferguson

96. “All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.” - Edward O. Wilson

97. “I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.” - Raymond Chandler

98. “Acceptable hypocrisy is often called politeness.” - Shannon L. Alder

99. “For benefits by their very greatness spotlight the difference in conditions and arouse a secret annoyance in those who profit from them. But the charm of simple good manners is almost irresistible.” - Alexis de Tocqueville