Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically--for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. Tha...t may seem mildly shocking to a moralist--but then what isn't?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In most cases an act of unwelcome sex is no more bother than being vaccinated, so there's no point going on about it as if it were... a fate worse than death. With skill and good manners you can avoid having to make the sacrifice, but should you find yourself in a compromising situation largely of your own making, you should stop defending your virtue and start worrying about your maturity. It will give you something to think about while the savage pumper bangs away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Manners aim to facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to energize. They aid our dealing and conversati...on, as a railway aids travelling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating from his countenance, he ma...y abolish all considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A reader is doubly guilty of bad manners against an author when he praises his second book at the expense of his first (or vice ve...rsa) and then expects the author to be grateful for what he has done.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and be...cause we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My grief lies all within, And these external manners of laments... Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul. There lies the substance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is ... remarkable ... that polish which removes the coarser an...d rougher parts of our nature is unknown and undreamed of.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »