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The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.
Judith Martin
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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Rude
Excuse
Brought
Behavior
Women
Way
More quotes by Judith Martin
A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.
Judith Martin
When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.
Judith Martin
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
It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
Judith Martin
Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
Judith Martin
A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.
Judith Martin
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
Only a person who considers himself too good for you is good enough.
Judith Martin
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
Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
Judith Martin
I have always believed that the key to a happy marriage was the ability to say with a straight face, 'Why, I don't know what you're worrying about. I thought you were very funny last night and I'm sure everybody else did, too.
Judith Martin
In its natural state, the child tells the literal truth because it is too naive to think of anything else. Blurting out the complete truth is considered adorable in the young, right smack up to the moment that the child says, 'Mommy, is this the fat lady you can't stand?
Judith Martin
When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
Judith Martin
[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
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
The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold.
Judith Martin
Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.
Judith Martin
Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.
Judith Martin
Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
Judith Martin
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