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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Judith Martin

Image
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
Image
You should resolve not to seek public approval of your private business, when you are not also prepared to accept public disapproval.
Judith Martin
Image
[after the death of a loved one] It is when there is nothing more to be done that the reality of the loss often hits with full force.
Judith Martin
Image
many of the guests will eventually leave the table to watch football on television, which would be a rudeness at any other occasion but is a relief at Thanksgiving and probably the only way to get those people to budge.
Judith Martin
Image
When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
Judith Martin
Image
. . . women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.
Judith Martin
Image
When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
Judith Martin
Image
Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
Judith Martin
Image
people, in forming their opinions of others, are usually lazy enough to go by whatever is most obvious or whatever chance remark they happen to hear. So the best policy is to dictate to others the opinion you want them to have of you.
Judith Martin
Image
The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?
Judith Martin
Image
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.
Judith Martin
Image
You think death is any better an excuse for desertion than any other?
Judith Martin
Image
Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
Judith Martin
Image
One should not be assigned one's identity in society by the job slot one happens to fill. If we truly believe in the dignity of labor, any task can be performed with equal pride because none can demean the basic dignity of a human being.
Judith Martin
Image
The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.
Judith Martin
Image
Washington knows that it is not safe to kick people who are down until you find out what their next stop will be.
Judith Martin
Image
Only a person who considers himself too good for you is good enough.
Judith Martin
Image
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.
Judith Martin
Image
Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not.
Judith Martin
Image
We have the reverse of the Puritan work ethic in America now. No one ever becomes a star by plugging along year after year. What is needed is flair, talent, 'an eye,' contacts, charisma, and, most of all, naturalness.
Judith Martin