Emily Post Quotes

Rather be frumpy than vulgar! Much. Frumps are often celebrities in disguise
but a person of vulgar appearance is vulgar all through.

Houses without personality are a series of walled enclosures with furniture standing around in them. Other houses are filled with things of little intrinsic value, even with much that is shabby and yet they have that inviting atmosphere ...

One very great annoyance in open air gatherings is cigar smoke when blown directly in one's face or worse yet the smoke from a smouldering cigar. It is almost worthy of a study in air currents to discover why with plenty of space all around, a tiny column of smoke will make straight for the nostrils of the very one most nauseated by it!

The natural impulses of every thoroughbred include his sense of honor; his love of fair play and courage; his dislike of pretense and of cheapness.

The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the writer's personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere paper.

Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man - no matter who he is - that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature.

A little praise is not only merest justice but is beyond the purse of no one.

Jealousy is the suspicion of one's own inferiority.

It is impossible for a hatless woman to be chic.

If you are hurt, whether in mind or body, don't nurse your bruises. Get up and light-heartedly, courageously, good temperedly get ready for the next encounter. This is the only way to take life - this is also 'playing' the game!

To be a good sportsman, one must be a stoic and never show rancor in defeat, or triumph in victory, or irritation, no matter what annoyance is encountered. One who can not help sulking, or explaining, or protesting when the loser, or exulting when the winner, has no right to take part in games or contests.

Good manners reflect something from inside-an innate sense of consideration for others and respect for self.

Whenever two people come together and their behavior affects one another, you have etiquette.

Alas! it is true: "Be polite to bores and so shall you have bores always round about you."

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life ... Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.

Nothing appeals to children more than justice, and they should be taught in the nursery to "play fair" in games, to respect each other's property and rights, to give credit to others, and not to take too much credit to themselves.

To tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to avoid deserved punishment
are all the blackest of black lies.

Any child can be taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are acquired is a Herculean task.

In popular houses where visitors like to go again and again, there is always a happy combination of some attention on the part of the hostess and the perfect freedom of the guests to occupy their time as they choose.

To do exactly as your neighbors do is the only sensible rule.

Consideration for the rights and feelings of others is not merely a rule for behavior in public but the very foundation upon which social life is built.

The fault of bad taste is usually in over-dressing. Quality not effect, is the standard to seek for.

There is no reason why you should be bored when you can be otherwise. But if you find yourself sitting in the hedgerow with nothing but weeds, there is no reason for shutting your eyes and seeing nothing, instead of finding what beauty you may in the weeds. To put it cynically, life is too short to waste it in drawing blanks. Therefore, it is up to you to find as many pictures to put on your blank pages as possible.

There is a big deposit of sympathy in the bank of love, but don't draw out little sums every hour or so - so that by and by, when perhaps you need it badly, it is all drawn out and you yourself don't know how or on what it was spent.

Manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life.

The most vulgar slang is scarcely worse than the attempted elegance which those unused to good society imagine to be the evidence of cultivation.

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a 'home' might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation.

The most advertised commodity is not always intrinsically the best; but is sometimes merely the product of a company, with plenty of money to spend on advertising.

Who does not dislike a "boneless" hand extended as though it were a spray of sea-weed, or a miniature boiled pudding?

Thus Best Society is not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth; but it is an association of gentle-folk, of which good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of others, are the credentials by which society the world over recognizes its chosen members.

Manners are like primary colors, there are certain rules and once you have these you merely mix, i.e., adapt, them to meet changing situations.

There is little you can do about the annoying speech mannerisms of others, but there is a lot you can do about your own.

Children are all more or less little monkeys in that they imitate everything they see. If their mother treats them exactly as she does her visitors they in turn play "visitor" to perfection. Nothing hurts the feelings of children more than not being allowed to behave like grown persons when they think they are able.

Unconsciousness of self is not so much unselfishness as it is the mental ability to extinguish all thought of one's self - exactly as one turns out the light.

Training a child is exactly like training a puppy; a little heedless inattention and it is out of hand immediately; the great thing is not to let it acquire bad habits that must afterward be broken.

"Keep your hands to yourself!" might almost be put at the head of the first chapter of every book on etiquette.