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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
Excuse
Brought
Behavior
Women
Way
Rude

More quotes by Judith Martin

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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.
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Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
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A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.
Judith Martin
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We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.
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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
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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.
Judith Martin
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Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without a comment is a wonderful social grace ... Children who have the habit of constantly correcting should be stopped before they grow up to drive spouses and everyone else crazy by interrupting stories to say, 'No, dear -- it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.
Judith Martin
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The stress of making small talk with in-laws is called being part of a family.
Judith Martin
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Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards
Judith Martin
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When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
Judith Martin
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Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
Judith Martin
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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
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One of the big no-nos in cyberspace is that you do not go into a social activity, a chat group or something like that, and start advertising or selling things. This etiquette rule is an attempt to separate one's social life, which should be pure enjoyment and relaxation, from the pressures of work.
Judith Martin
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The only way to enjoy the fun of catching people behaving disgustingly is to have children. One has to keep having them, however, because it is incorrect to correct grown people, even if you have grown them yourself.
Judith Martin
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A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.
Judith Martin
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Honesty is a virtue, but not the only one. If you're in a courtroom you need the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the living room, sometimes you need anything but. Often.
Judith Martin
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It is said that dispensing advice is easy. What is difficult is getting anyone to listen to it.
Judith Martin
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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
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Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
Judith Martin
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Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
Judith Martin