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.
The most vulgar slang is scarcely worse than the attempted elegance which those unused to good society imagine to be the evidence of cultivation.
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.
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.
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...
Never do anything that is unpleasant to others.
Elbows are never put on the table while one is eating.
The eleventh commandment, “Thou shalt not be found out” is despicable, but nevertheless, it is the one thing you can never get away from.
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.
Courtesy demands that you, when you are a guest, shall show neither annoyance nor disappointment – no matter what happens.
The fault of bad taste is usually in over-dressing. Quality not effect, is the standard to seek for.
To tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to avoid deserved punishment – are all the blackest of black lies.
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 only occasion when the traditions of courtesy permit a hostess to help herself before a woman guest is when she has reason to believe the food is poisoned.
Golf is a particularly severe strain upon the amiability of the average person’s temper, and in no other game, except bridge, is serenity of disposition so essential.
Custom is a mutable thing; yet we readily recognize the permanence of certain social values. Graciousness and courtesy are never old-fashioned.
Rather be frumpy than vulgar! Much. Frumps are often celebrities in disguise – but a person of vulgar appearance is vulgar all through.
Jealousy is the suspicion of one’s own inferiority.
No rule of etiquette is of less importance than which fork we use.
If God had intended for women to wear slacks, He would have constructed them differently.
A lady never asks a gentleman to dance, or to go to supper with her.