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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

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Used
Rudeness
People
Technically
Politeness
Polite
Thus
Impossible
Show
Shows

More quotes by Judith Martin

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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.
Judith Martin
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it's no longer socially acceptable to make bigoted statements and racist remarks. Some people are having an awful time with that: 'I didn't know anybody would be offended!' Well, where have you been? I remember when people got away with it and they don't anymore. That's fabulous.
Judith Martin
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It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one’s marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can’t afford to do anyway are vulgar.
Judith Martin
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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
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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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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
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A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.
Judith Martin
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The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.
Judith Martin
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For email, the old postcard rule applies. Nobody else is supposed to read your postcards, but you'd be a fool if you wrote anything private on one.
Judith Martin
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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
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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
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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.
Judith Martin
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Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.
Judith Martin
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We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility.
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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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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Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution.
Judith Martin
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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
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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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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