These etiquette quotes will inspire you. Etiquette is the rules indicating the proper and polite way to behave or the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging etiquette quotes, etiquette sayings, and etiquette proverbs.
Best Etiquette Quotes
- “Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.” ~ Dorothy Parker
- “The high point of civilization is that you can hate me and I can hate you but we develop an etiquette that allows us to deal with each other because if we acted solely upon our impulse we’d probably go to war.” ~ Stanley Crouch
- “Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people’s bad manners.” ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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“Etiquette requires us to admire the human race.” ~ Mark Twain
- “Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor.” ~ Emily Post
- “Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential.” ~ Will Cuppy
- “Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.” ~ Clarence Thomas
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“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
- “Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back.” ~ Thomas Sowell
- “The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.” ~ Oscar Wilde
- “Etiquette can be at the same time a means of approaching people and of staying clear of them.” ~ David Riesman
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“Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run around with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened.” ~ Stanley Walker
- “Every one of us is an artist, and as an artist, you really can stroll into any venue that you want, as long as you take your time to learn the etiquette of that venue.” ~ Terrence Howard
- “Etiquette is the ceremonial code of polite life, more voluminous and minute in each portion of society according to its rank.” ~ John Ramsay McCulloch
- “Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them.” ~ Benjamin Disraeli
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“Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “The way the business things work in Russia is you have to meet people, you have to go through a certain amount of etiquette, and business things are done just simply by a shake of the hand and whether they like you or not.” ~ Marc Almond
- “In social matters, pointless conventions are not merely the bee sting of etiquette, but the snake bite of moral order.” ~ Florence King , Social etiquette quotes
- “Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette. There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin.” ~ Quentin Crisp
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“I’m not shy about heated debate or passionate discourse, but when people get crazy or rude, that’s a buzz kill. There’s got to be a better code of conduct, some basic etiquette.” ~ Mos Def
- “Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette.” ~ Walter Scott
- “Every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquette by giving him away.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
- “The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.” ~ Paul Theroux
- “And doing a film in that period, and having to really celebrate what they wore back then, how they sat and how they spoke. You know, what the etiquette was back then for a lady. All of those things are like putting on a wig and transforming yourself, which I love.” ~ Charlize Theron
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“In society, it is etiquette for ladies to have the best chairs and get handed things. In the home, the reverse is the case. This is why ladies are more sociable than gentlemen.” ~ Virginia Graham
- “A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.” ~ Judith Martin
- “He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.” ~ Walter Benjamin
- “Fashion exists for women with no taste, etiquette for people with no breeding.” ~ Marie of Romania
- “We show wisdom by a decent conformity to social etiquette; it is excess of neatness or display that creates dandyism in men, and coquetry in women.” ~ Robert Adam
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“When we lack etiquette, we trash things. We trash each other. We trash the environment. We lose sight of the value of things. We suffer alienation when our spirit is disconnected from our physical awareness.” ~ Frederick Lenz
- “Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.” ~ Douglas William Jerrold
- “I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.” ~ Amy Vanderbilt
- “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.” ~ Judith Martin
- “Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.” ~ Madame de Stael
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“I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.” ~ George Mason
- “Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.” ~ Ambrose Bierce
- “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.” ~ W. C. Fields
- “We don’t bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don’t dress well and we’ve no manners.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
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“Protocol is etiquette with a government expense account.” ~ Judith Martin
- “One of the big no-nos in cyberspace is that you do not go into a social activity, a chat group or something like that, and start advertising or selling things. This etiquette rule is an attempt to separate one’s social life, which should be pure enjoyment and relaxation, from the pressures of work.” ~ Judith Martin
- “The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it’s very cumbersome to switch to a different family.” ~ Judith Martin
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“You can get through life with bad manners, but it’s easier with good manners.” ~ Lillian Gish
- “If it’s against state law, it’s generally considered a breach of Etiquette.” ~ Judith Martin
- “At the dinner table, if you can’t think of anything to say, sit quietly. Don’t throw rolls, or chew on your napkin.” ~ Mason Cooley
- “In Buddhism, we have a great deal of etiquette. Etiquette is simply ways of living to conserve energy. Etiquette allows people to live in harmony with their environment.” ~ Frederick Lenz
- “From a Buddhist perspective, it is incorrect to always assume that we know what is best.” ~ Frederick Lenz
- “A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that’s to find the truth each day in every part of their life.” ~ Frederick Lenz
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“The purpose of etiquette is to provide an easy set of rules which we can follow when we are in a hurry and want to make sure that we do not give offense to anybody.” ~ Angela Lansbury
- “There is no letter of the law to follow in Zen. There is a lot of etiquettes, but there are no rules.” ~ Frederick Lenz
- “The etiquette business has its emergencies, heaven knows, but it is in the nature of etiquette emergencies that once one realizes what one has done, it is too late. One might as well get a good night’s sleep and send flowers with an apology in the morning.” ~ Judith Martin , Business etiquette quotes
- “Last winter, when so many Living joined the Dead and our prey became scarce, I watched some of my friends become full-dead. The transition was undramatic. They just slowed down, then stopped, and after a while I realised they were corpses. It disquieted me at first, but it’s against etiquette to notice when one of us dies. I distracted myself with some groaning.” ~ Isaac Marion
- “People say when you’re in love, you don’t need etiquette. Well, you need it then more than anything. Or they say, “At home I can just be myself.” What they mean is they can be their worst selves… They always mean they will save all their anxiety about how to behave for somebody like the head waiter of a restaurant, someone they’ll never see again.” ~ Judith Martin
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“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.” ~ Judith Martin
- “When I used to teach civil procedure as a law professor, I would begin the year by telling my students that “civil procedure is the etiquette of ritualized battle.” The phrase, which did not originate with me, captured the point that peaceful, developed societies resolve disputes by law rather than by force.” ~ Anne-Marie Slaughter
- “Playing well with others isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” ~ Alafair Burke
- “There are etiquette things that actors, new actors, need to know about. Because it only takes one mess-up on a set to get fired. Not being where you’re supposed to be or saying something to the wrong person that you’re not supposed to say, and those are like basic things that the actors need to know.” ~ Loretta Devine
- “… because lifestyles are changing constantly the rules of etiquette are changing too — a little slower than lifestyles perhaps, but still changing.” ~ Angela Lansbury
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“Ballroom dancing: it’s a wonderful thing at so many levels because you’ve got to follow the rules. They used to call those rules etiquette once upon a time, but you don’t really have that any more.” ~ Anton du Beke
- “I do have rules, and etiquette things. I think it’s a southern thing too, to an extent. I’ll hold the door for someone, but if they don’t say, “Thank you,” it pisses me off. I say, “Yes, ma’am,” and, “Yes, sir.” Stuff that is maybe archaic in a lot of ways, but that’s how I was raised, and I don’t think there’s really any harm in that.” ~ Chris Black
- “Honestly, a lot of the human etiquette I learned in life I learned from, like, thank-you notes and dating Jimmy Kimmel.” ~ Roseanne Barr
- “One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him.” ~ James Russell Lowell
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“It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.” ~ Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
- “As Buddha points out, you should not rely on the opinions of others for validation of your internal progression.” ~ Frederick Lenz
- “Being a Buddhist monk means never losing one’s optimism in spite of all difficulties. It also means being harder on yourself than any of your teachers ever were.” ~ Frederick Lenz
- “People enter states of consciousness where they think they’ve become enlightened. The best thing to do, if you’ve gone through one of those phases, is to be sensible, laugh at yourself for how foolish you were.” ~ Frederick Lenz
