Quote

You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do

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
Everything
Right
Disagreeable

More quotes by Judith Martin

Image
A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.
Judith Martin
Image
Like language, a code of manners can be used with more or less skill, for laudable or for evil purposes, to express a great variety of ideas and emotions. In itself, it carries no moral value, but ignorance in use of this tool is not a sign of virtue.
Judith Martin
Image
Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
Judith Martin
Image
What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.
Judith Martin
Image
A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.
Judith Martin
Image
The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way.
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
The challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.
Judith Martin
Image
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
Image
Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons.
Judith Martin
Image
There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
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
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
Image
Only a person who considers himself too good for you is good enough.
Judith Martin
Image
Etiquette enables you to resolve conflict without just trading insults. Without etiquette, the irritations in modern life are so abrasive that you see people turning to the law to regulate everyday behavior. This frightens me it's a major inroad on our basic freedoms.
Judith Martin
Image
Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.
Judith Martin
Image
Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.
Judith Martin
Image
Perhaps the greatest rudenesses of our time come not from the callousness of strangers, but from the solicitousness of intimates who believe that their frank criticisms are always welcome, and who feel free to be themselves with those they love, which turns out to mean being their worst selves, while saving their best behavior for strangers.
Judith Martin
Image
Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards
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