Judith Martin Quotes

Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards

If it's against state law, it's generally considered a breach of Etiquette.

Adorable children are considered to be the general property of the human race. Rude children belong to their mothers.

It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

The family dinner table is the cornerstone of civilization and those who 'graze' from refrigerators or in front of the television sets are doomed to remain in a state of savagery.

Ideological differences are no excuse for rudeness.

We are born charming fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.

When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.

If you can't be kind, at least be vague.

Email is very informal, a memo. But I find that not signing off or not having a salutation bothers me.

Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.

We are all born rude. No infant has ever appeared yet with the grace to understand how inconsiderate it is to disturb others in the middle of the night.

You don't want to look too chic at a Washington party or people will think you don't have a job worth losing.

It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.

Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.

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.

You glance at an e-mail. You give more attention to a real letter.

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.

Protocol is etiquette with a government expense account.

Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.

Manners require showing consideration of all human beings, not just the ones to whom one is close.

The underlying principles of manners- respect, fairness, and congeniality.

When someone has tried to please you, it is rude, as well as disheartening, to respond by announcing that the effort was a failure.

When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.

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.

The one prediction that never comes true is, 'You'll thank me for telling you this.

Life is full of wonderful passions that come and go over the years, but the only one that will never let you down is reading.

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.

When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

Greece is a good place for rebirths.

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.

A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.

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.

You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do

Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.

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.

Chaperons don't enforce morality; they force immorality to be discreet.

When you're in love, you put up with things that, when you're out of love you cite.

You should resolve not to seek public approval of your private business, when you are not also prepared to accept public disapproval.

There is nothing like a good friend to help you out when you are not in trouble.

Part of the skill of saying no is to shut up afterward and not babble on, offering material for an argument.

Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.

Fairness does not consist so much of everybody's doing the same thing, but of everybody's being willing to do something that others don't want to do.

everyone old enough to have a secret is entitled to have some place to keep it.

The stress of making small talk with in-laws is called being part of a family.

It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.

The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?

Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one.

A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.