These polite quotes will inspire you. Polite, showing good manners toward others, as in behavior, speech, etc.; courteous; civil or relating to people who regard themselves as more cultured and refined than others.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging polite quotes, polite sayings, and polite proverbs.
Best Polite Quotes
- “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” ~ James Mattis
- “A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.” ~ Amy Vanderbilt
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“For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
- “The only true source of politeness is consideration.” ~ William Gilmore Simms
- “The purpose of polite behavior is never virtuous. Deceit, surrender, and concealment these are not virtues. The goal of the mannerly is comfort, per se.” ~ June Jordan
- “I have seen people rude by being over-polite.” ~ Michel de Montaigne
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“Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.” ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld
- “Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
- “Curvy is just a polite way of saying fat.” ~ Hannah Simone
- “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
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“Polite conversation is rarely either.” ~ Fran Lebowitz
- “Among well bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt for others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority.” ~ David Hume
- “Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.” ~ Otto von Bismarck
- “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
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“No language is rude that can boast polite writers.” ~ Aubrey Beardsley
- “One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.” ~ Josh Billings
- “You know, sometimes, when they say you’re ahead of your time, it’s just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.” ~ George McGovern
- “Tell me about yourself, Miss Russel.” I started to give him the obligatory response, first the demurral and then the reluctant flat autobiography, but some slight air of polite inattention in his manner stopped me. Instead, I found myself grinning at him. “Why don’t you tell me about myself, Mr. Holmes?” ~ Laurie R. King
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“Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.” ~ Winston Churchill
- “Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.” ~ Ambrose Bierce
- “Be polite to all, but intimate with few.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
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“Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.” ~ e. e. cummings
- “Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.” ~ Ambrose Bierce
- “What a polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be “sorry” and admiration of each other’s play crosses the net as frequently as the ball.” ~ James M. Barrie
- “Being polite to a person is not a sign of respect for them. It is merely a sign of a good upbringing and a balanced nature.” ~ Brandon Sanderson
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“A polite enemy is just as difficult to discredit, as a rude friend is to protect.” ~ Bryant H. McGill
- “There’s no chivalry in culture any more. Sometimes you meet someone who everyone says is polite and you’re like, ‘Wow,’ but then it’s like, ‘Hang on, isn’t everyone supposed to be polite?'” ~ will.i.am
- “Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.” ~ Dean Koontz
- “We must recall the most important of humanity guidelines: Be polite. Being polite is possibly the greatest daily contribution everyone can make to life on Earth.” ~ Caitlin Moran
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“Things it is not polite to discuss at the dinner table: politics, religion, and the walking dead.” ~ Mira Grant
- “If an armed nation were a polite nation, America would be paradise. We have more than 200 million guns in private owernship here. But our manners are not getting better.” ~ Molly Ivins
- “When you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful, and polite, you have hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true/sincere.” ~ Milan Kundera
- “Polite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing and solving our real problems.” ~ Martha Beck
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“Sometimes we are too polite with our suffering and allow it to dominate our life.” ~ Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
- “Balanced is probably what I am, although that’s just a polite way to say that you don’t do anything very well.” ~ Steve Yzerman
- “When we are polite to children, we show in the most simple and direct way possible that we value them as people and care about their feelings.” ~ David Elkind
- “I really have to thank Facebook … I didn’t know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time. I would never say the people on it are losers, but that’s only because I’m polite. People say ‘But Betty, Facebook is a great way to connect with old friends.’ Well at my age, if I wanna connect with old friends, I need a Ouija Board. Needless to say, we didn’t have Facebook when I was growing up. We had phonebook, but you wouldn’t waste an afternoon with it.” ~ Betty White
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“Argument should be polite as well as logical.” ~ Alphonse de Lamartine
- “It’s impossible to expect polite behavior from people who’ve never witnessed it.” ~ Kathleen Parker
- “The good four. Honest with ourselves and with whatever is friend to us; courageous toward the enemy; generous toward the vanquished; polite-always that is how the four cardinal virtues want us.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
- “There was a nice dilemma. How does one interject into a polite conversation, “By the way, in case you’re ever interested, I do have a penise.”?” ~ Brent Weeks
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“I love to see a dedicated, loyal and a polite fans!” ~ Greyson Chance
- “When a man is trying to sell you something, don’t imagine he is that polite all the time.” ~ E. W. Howe
- “Do what comes into your life and do it well… Be polite without groveling. If you are ever afraid of anything, do not deny it, but behave as if you feared nothing.” ~ Anna Lee
- “The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.” ~ Malcolm Bradbury
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“Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.” ~ Madame de Stael
- “So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.” ~ Chris Rock
- “No use to preach to the working-man courtesy & politeness when at the same time the working-man is not given working conditions under which he can stay polite and soft-mannered.” ~ B. Traven
- “It’s disquieting to reflect that one’s dreams never symbolize one’s real wishes, but always something Much Worse… If I really wanted to be passionately embraced by Peter, I should dream of dentists or gardening. I wonder what unspeakable depths of awfulness can only be expressed by the polite symbol of Peter’s embraces?” ~ Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people’s bad manners.” ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
- “It’s one of the advantages of being a woman. I get to do all sorts of unfair things, and you have to accept them because you’re too polite not to. –Polgara” ~ David Eddings , Polite quotes woman
- “I know, I say, after he says, This is hard, for the third time. This is what happens when you have a TRM, I tell him. You make a mess. It’s okay. You just have to try harder next time. I am trying hard, Dad says. I know. You get a sticker. Thank you. Okay. You get another sticker for being polite.” ~ Kathryn Erskine
- “Why haven’t you asked me how I do my tricks?” Celia asks, once they have reached the point where she is certain he is not simply being polite about the matter. “Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better remain in the dark.” ~ Erin Morgenstern
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“To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise.” ~ Alexander Pope
- “Shane settled his flamethrower more comfortably on his shoulders. “Ladies? After you.” “Rude,” Claire said. “I was being polite!” “Not when you have a flamethrower.” ~ Rachel Caine
- “… Where did you go?” “Down below.” “Ugh,” she said. “I’ve heard they’re little better than animals.” Funny. I thought the same thing about most Topsiders I encountered. Tegan touched my hand in silent sympathy, and I set my jaw. … I stepped forward and pasted on a false smile. We were in her home, after all. The least I could do was be polite. “I’m Deuce, animal from the underground.” ~ Ann Aguirre
- “I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That’s what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won’t mention you’re crazy.” ~ Tamora Pierce
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“An armed society is a polite society.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
- “You were honest and hardworking and kind. You were polite and patient and more mature than any guy I’d dated before. And when we were together, you listened in a way that made me feel like I was the only woman in the world. You made me feel complete and spending time with you just seemed right.” ~ Nicholas Sparks
- “Off with you” is a phrase used by people who lack the courtesy to say something more polite, such as, “if there’s nothing else you require I must be going” or “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave, please” or even “excuse me but I believe you have mistaken my home for your own and my valuable belongings for yours and I must ask you to return the items in question to me and leave my home after untying me from this chair, as I’m unable to do it myself if it’s not too much trouble.” ~ Daniel Handler
- “Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.” ~ Harper Lee
- “A community where everyone is a ruthless murderer, with handy access to death-dealing devices, is a very polite community.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
