I want you to know that a man is considered pleasant if his manners conform to the common practices between friends, whereas someone who is eccentric will, in all situations, appear to be a stranger, that is, alien. On the contrary, men who are affable and polite will appear to have friends and acquaintances wherever they may be.
[E sappi che colui è piacevole i cui modi sono tali nell’usanza comune, quali costumano di tenere gli amici infra di loro, là dove chi è strano pare in ciascun luogo «straniero», che tanto viene a dire come «forestiero»; sì come i domestici uomini, per lo contrario, pare che siano ovunque vadano conoscenti et amici di ciascuno.]
Giovanni della Casa (1503–1556) Florentine poet, author, diplomat, bishop
Galateo: Or, A Treatise on Politeness and Delicacy of Manners [Il Galateo overo de’ costumi], ch. 9 (1558) [tr. Einsenbichler/Bartlett (1986)]
(Source)
(Source (Italian)). Other translations:And you must understand, that he is pleasaunt and courteous: whose manners bee suche in his common behaviour, as practise to keepe, and maintaine him friendeship amongst them: where hee that is solleyne and way warde, makes him selfe a straunger whersoever hee comes: a straunger, I meane, as much as a forreigne or alienborne.
[tr. Peterson (1576)]We ought to esteem him alone an agreeable and good-natured man, who, in his daily intercourse with others, behaves in such a manner as friends usually behave to each other. For as a person of that rustic character appears, wherever he comes, like a mere stranger: so, on the contrary, a polite man, wherever he goes, seems as easy as if he were amongst his intimate friends and acquaintance.
[tr. Graves (1774)]
Quotations about:
pleasant
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
It is a dear and lovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away indignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features of an experience.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
In The North American Review (1906)
(Source)
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1712-02-06), The Spectator, No. 306
(Source)
Deep learning will make you acceptable to the learned; but it is only an obliging and easy behaviour, and entertaining conversation, that will make you agreeable to all companies.
James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician and writer
The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
(Source)
HAMLET: O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables — meet it is I set it down
That one may smile and smile and be a villain.William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 1, sc. 5, l. 113ff (1.5.113-115) (c. 1600)
(Source)





