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Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.

Judith Martin

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Belief
Form
Around
Way
Nowadays
Beliefs
Fit
Behavior

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We are born charming fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
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Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.
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There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
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A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.
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Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
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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.
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The truly essential bargain between host and guest requires the guest only to respond promptly, show up on time, socialize with other guests, thank the host, write additional thanks and reciprocate. You needn't bring anything.
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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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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.
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I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.
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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.
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Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
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You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do
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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.
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Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards
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Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
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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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The dinner table is the center for the teaching and practicing not just of table manners but of conversation, consideration, tolerance, family feeling, and just about all the other accomplishments of polite society except the minuet.
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Parents should conduct their arguments in quiet, respectful tones, but in a foreign language. You'd be surprised what an inducement that is to the education of children.
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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