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Quotations about civility
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
But they that breake bands of civilitie,
And wicked customes make, those doe defame
Both noble armes and gentle curtesie.
No greater shame to man than inhumanitie.Edmund Spenser (c. 1552-1599) English poet
The Faerie Queene, Book 6, Canto 1, st. 26 (1589-96)
(Source)
Morals are three-quarters manners.
For to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.
Agnes Repplier (1855-1950) American writer
“A Question of Politeness,” Americans and Others (1912)
(Source)
Civility costs nothing, and buys everything.
Better a false “Good morning” than a sincere “Go to Hell.”
The music that can deepest reach,
And cure all ill, is cordial speech.
Kind words also produce their own image in men’s souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
(Attributed)
(Source)
Often attributed without citation in 19th Century works, e.g., The Golden Rule and Odd-Fellows' Family Companion, Vol. 7 (1847).
If a civil word or two will render a man happy, he must be a wretch indeed who will not give them to him.
Louis XIV (1638-1715) French monarch (1643-1715) [Louis the Great, the Sun King)
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in William Seward, Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Vol 4, 5th ed. (1804).
When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #50 (25 Sep 1750)
(Source)
Talking is one of the fine arts — the noblest, the most important, the most difficult — and its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note.
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
Be civil, then, to young and old,
Especially to persons who
Possess a quantity of gold
Which they might leave to you.
The more they have, it seems to me,
The more polite you ought to be.
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.
Conformity is the ape of harmony.
NARRATOR: No moral. No message. No prophetic tract. Just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight’s very small exercise in logic from the Twilight Zone.
Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.
Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something which you have to be all the time. Which isn’t easy.
SIMON: I swear — when it’s appropriate.
KAYLEE: Simon, the whole point of swearing is that it ain’t appropriate.
Whenever the locals rub blue mud in their navels, I rub blue mud in mine just as solemnly.
All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Men’s Understandings.
I have always been fond of the West African proverb “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
Letter to Henry L. Sprague (26 Jan 1900)
Full text. This is the first known use by Roosevelt of his future catch phrase. It attained more fame when he used it in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair (2 Sep 1901) (there are transcript variants):
- "There is a homely adage which runs 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.' If the American nation will speak softly and yet build and keep at a pitch of highest training a thoroughly efficient Navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far."
- "Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick — you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting, and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words, his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. Whenever on any point we come in contact with a foreign power, I hope that we shall always strive to speak courteously and respectfully of that foreign power."
It hurteth not the toung to give faire words.
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 1, ch. 9 (1546)
(Source)
So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children are smart.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, # 1 (1956)
(Source)
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.