“Good taste, tact, and propriety have more in common than men of letters affect to believe. Tact is good taste applied to bearing and conduct, and propriety is good taste applied to conversation.”
Le bon goût, le tact et le bon ton, ont plus de rapport que n'affectent de le croire les Gens de Lettres. Le tact, c'est le bon goût appliqué au main- tien et à la conduite; le bon ton, c'est le bon goût appliqué aux discours et à la conversation.
Maximes et Pensées, #427
Maxims and Considerations, #427
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Nicolas Chamfort 54
French writer 1741–1794Related quotes
“Sometimes it's more important to be human, than to have good taste.”
International Herald Tribune (29 October 1991)
Context: Despite all the political misery I am confronted with every day, it still is my profound conviction that the very essence of politics is not dirty; dirt is brought in only by wicked people. I admit that this is an area of human activity where the temptation to advance through unfair actions may be stronger than elsewhere, and which thus makes higher demands on human integrity. But it is not true at all that a politician cannot do without lying or intriguing. That is sheer nonsense, often spread by those who want to discourage people from taking an interest in public affairs.
Of course, in politics, just as anywhere else in life, it is impossible and it would not be sensible always to say everything bluntly. Yet that does not mean one has to lie. What is needed here are tact, instinct and good taste.
“Ladies have a bad taste in men. I'm not that good looking.”
“To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.”
Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)
“The believers have four signs: good humor, tactfulness, kind heartedness and openhandedness”
Muhammad al-Hur al-Aamili, Wasā'il al-Shī‘ah, vol.6, p. 321
Religous Wisdom
“Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.”
Le génie enfante, le goût conserve. Le goût est le bon sens du génie; sans le goût, le génie n'est qu'une sublime folie.
François-René de Chateaubriand, in "Essai sur la littérature anglaise (1836): Modèles classiques http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=NUMM-101390&M=tdm.
Misattributed
“Nothing tastes as good as looking good feels.”