Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Like
Values
Tools
Tool
Less
Skills
Skill
Evil
Ignorance
Manners
Language
Value
Code
Use
Emotion
Variety
Laudable
Used
Virtue
Sign
Carries
Ideas
Moral
Emotions
Carrie
Great
Purpose
Express
Purposes

More quotes by 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
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
Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
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
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
A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.
Judith Martin
Image
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
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
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.
Judith Martin
Image
Visiting the sick is supposed to exhibit such great virtue that there are some people determined to do it whether the sick like it or not. ... All visitors everywhere are supposed to make plans to depart if they observe their hosts visibly wilting or in pain, but this is especially true at hospitals.
Judith Martin
Image
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.
Judith Martin
Image
Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.
Judith Martin
Image
Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
Judith Martin
Image
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
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
If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.
Judith Martin
Image
Meanwhile, the empty forms of social behavior survive inappropriately in business situations. We all know that when a business sends its customers 'friendly reminders,' it really means business.
Judith Martin
Image
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.
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