Quote

It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one’s marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can’t afford to do anyway are vulgar.

Judith Martin

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Marriage
Rings
Diamonds
Wrong
Precious
Mixture
Many
Anyway
Mixtures
Always
Dinner
Colored
Things
Stones
Vulgar
Wear
Diamond
Except
Breakfast
Comfort
Afford
Luncheon

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When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.
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Learn graceful ways of saying no and of pointing out that this pressure to do something is not in line with most people's wishes.
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What you have when everyone wears the same playclothes for all occasions, is addressed by nickname, expected to participate in Show And Tell, and bullied out of any desire form privacy, is not democracy it is kindergarten.
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It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.
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It doesn't matter whether the bride or the bridegroom writes the letters of thanks for wedding presents provided that these go out immediately after the arrival of each present and are not in the handwriting of the bride's mother.
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For email, the old postcard rule applies. Nobody else is supposed to read your postcards, but you'd be a fool if you wrote anything private on one.
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Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
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