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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
Politeness
Polite
Thus
Impossible
Show
Shows
Used
Rudeness
People
Technically

More quotes by Judith Martin

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The whole country wants civility. Why don't we have it? It doesn't cost anything. No federal funding, no legislation is involved. One answer is the unwillingness to restrain oneself. Everybody wants other people to be polite to them, but they want the freedom of not having to be polite to others.
Judith Martin
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A wedding invitation is sent by people who have been saying, Do we have to ask them? to people whose first response is, How much do you think we have to spend on them?
Judith Martin
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What restricts the use of the word 'lady' among the courteous is that it is intended to set a woman apart from ordinary humanity, and in the working world that is not a help, as women have discovered in many bitter ways.
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
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The pejorative term political correctness was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe.
Judith Martin
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You should resolve not to seek public approval of your private business, when you are not also prepared to accept public disapproval.
Judith Martin
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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
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We are born charming fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
Judith Martin
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. . . women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.
Judith Martin
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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.
Judith Martin
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People will say, 'Seventy isn't old, it's middle-aged,' and I think, middle of what - 140?
Judith Martin
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people, in forming their opinions of others, are usually lazy enough to go by whatever is most obvious or whatever chance remark they happen to hear. So the best policy is to dictate to others the opinion you want them to have of you.
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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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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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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Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.
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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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
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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.
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