Quotes about manner
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Horace Mann photo

“Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

The Common School Journal Vol. IX, No. 12 (15 June 1847), p. 181
Context: Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals. As childhood advances to manhood, the transition from bad manners to bad morals is almost imperceptible. Vulgar and obscene forms of speech keep vulgar and obscene objects before the mind, engender impure images in the imagination, and make unlawful desires prurient. From the prevalent state of the mind, actions proceed, as water rises from a fountain.

Plotinus photo

“Perhaps, the good and the beautiful are the same, and must be investigated by one and the same process; and in like manner the base and the evil.”

Plotinus (203–270) Neoplatonist philosopher

An Essay on the Beautiful
Context: Perhaps, the good and the beautiful are the same, and must be investigated by one and the same process; and in like manner the base and the evil. And in the first rank we must place the beautiful, and consider it as the same with the good; from which immediately emanates intellect as beautiful. Next to this, we must consider the soul receiving its beauty from intellect, and every inferior beauty deriving its origin from the forming power of the soul, whether conversant in fair actions and offices, or sciences and arts. Lastly, bodies themselves participate of beauty from the soul, which, as something divine, and a portion of the beautiful itself, renders whatever it supervenes and subdues, beautiful as far as its natural capacity will admit.
Let us, therefore, re-ascend to the good itself, which every soul desires; and in which it can alone find perfect repose. For if anyone shall become acquainted with this source of beauty he will then know what I say, and after what manner he is beautiful. Indeed, whatever is desirable is a kind of good, since to this desire tends. But they alone pursue true good, who rise to intelligible beauty, and so far only tend to good itself; as far as they lay aside the deformed vestments of matter, with which they become connected in their descent. Just as those who penetrate into the holy retreats of sacred mysteries, are first purified and then divest themselves of their garments, until someone by such a process, having dismissed everything foreign from the God, by himself alone, beholds the solitary principle of the universe, sincere, simple and pure, from which all things depend, and to whose transcendent perfections the eyes of all intelligent natures are directed, as the proper cause of being, life and intelligence. With what ardent love, with what strong desire will he who enjoys this transporting vision be inflamed while vehemently affecting to become one with this supreme beauty! For this it is ordained, that he who does not yet perceive him, yet desires him as good, but he who enjoys the vision is enraptured with his beauty, and is equally filled with admiration and delight. Hence, such a one is agitated with a salutary astonishment; is affected with the highest and truest love; derides vehement affections and inferior loves, and despises the beauty which he once approved. Such, too, is the condition of those who, on perceiving the forms of gods or daemons, no longer esteem the fairest of corporeal forms. What, then, must be the condition of that being, who beholds the beautiful itself?

George Washington photo

“Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Context: I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

Jeremy Clarkson photo

“As Russians say, manners maketh the British late. ”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer
Maximilien Robespierre photo
Maximilien Robespierre photo
Thomas Paine photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“Aluminium, however, will not stop at downing copper. Before many years have passed it will be engaged in a fierce struggle with iron, and in the latter it will find an adversary not easy to conquer. The issue of the contest will largely depend on whether iron shall be indispensable in electric machinery. This the future alone can decide. The magnetism as exhibited in iron is an isolated phenomenon in nature. What it is that makes this metal behave so radically different from all other materials in this respect has not yet been ascertained, though many theories have been suggested. As regards magnetism, the molecules of the various bodies behave like hollow beams partly filled with a heavy fluid and balanced in the middle in the manner of a see-saw. Evidently some disturbing influence exists in nature which causes each molecule, like such a beam, to tilt either one or the other way. If the molecules are tilted one way, the body is magnetic; if they are tilted the other way, the body is non-magnetic; but both positions are stable, as they would be in the case of the hollow beam, owing to the rush of the fluid to the lower end. Now, the wonderful thing is that the molecules of all known bodies went one way, while those of iron went the other way. This metal, it would seem, has an origin entirely different from that of the rest of the globe. It is highly improbable that we shall discover some other and cheaper material which will equal or surpass iron in magnetic qualities.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Michael Oakeshott photo
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy photo
Joe Strummer photo

“In fact, punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow human being. Fuck being an asshole, what you pussies thought it was twenty years ago.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter

from CD Now (September 1999) with Jason Gross

Bruce Lee photo
James I of England photo
Voltaire photo
Ali al-Hadi photo

“It suffices for you to have good manners by giving up what you hate of others.”

Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam

[Ma’athir al-Kubara’, 3, 219]
[Baqir Shareef al-Qarashi, Abdullah al-Shahin, The Life of Imam ‘Ali al-Hadi, Study and Analysis, His narrations from Amir’ul- Mu’minin, 2007, 82]
General subjects

George Washington photo

“Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love — I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case — and further I confess, that this Lady is known to you. — Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I coud wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. — but experience alas! sadly reminds me how Impossible this is. — and evinces an Opinion which I have long entertaind, that there is a Destiny, which has the Sovereign controul of our Actions — not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.
You have drawn me my dear Madam, or rather have I drawn myself, into an honest confession of a Simple Fact — misconstrue not my meaning — ’tis obvious — doubt it not, nor expose it, — the World has no business to know the object of my Love, declard in this manner to — you when I want to conceal it — One thing, above all things in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your Acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

but adieu to this, till happier times, if I ever shall see them.

Letter to https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-06-02-0013#GEWN-02-06-02-0013-fn-0002 Mrs. George William Fairfax (Sally Cary Fairfax) (12 September 1758)
1750s

Karl Marx photo
Zafar Mirzo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Prayut Chan-o-cha photo

“If seafood is expensive then don't eat it. Leave it to the wealthy. I cannot ensure equality in this manner. If you want to eat expensive items then you must work hard and find a lot of money....We cannot pull everyone to the same level.”

Prayut Chan-o-cha (1954) Thai military officer, junta chief, and politician

3 July 2015
Source: [National Broadcast by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister –July 3, 2015, http://www.thaigov.go.th/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=93453:93453&Itemid=399&lang=en, Royal Thai Government, 8 August 2015]

Joseph De Maistre photo

“Genius does not seem to derive any great support from syllogisms. Its carriage is free; its manner has a touch of inspiration. We see it come, but we never see it walk.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Tenth Dialogue"
St. Petersburg Dialogues (1821)

Jordan Peterson photo

“To come up with the idea that you can bargain with the future is the major idea of humankind. We suffer. What do we do about it? We figure out how to bargain with the future. And we minimize suffering in that manner.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"

Lynne Truss photo

“Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.”

Lynne Truss (1955) British writer

Source: Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door

Meister Eckhart photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“In character, in manner, in style, in all the things, the supreme excellence is simplicity”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Source: Favorite Poems

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Barbara Kingsolver photo
Emily Post photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Robert Musil photo
Walt Whitman photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Martin Heidegger photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Maria Edgeworth photo
Raymond Chandler photo
Kay Redfield Jamison photo

“One is what one is, and the dishonesty of hiding behind a degree, or a title, or any manner and collection of words, is still exactly that: dishonest.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Christopher Moore photo
Laura Esquivel photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.”

"Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw"
Variant translation: A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present time — this one, for instance — as it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

John Boyne photo

“In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Kiyohiko Azuma photo
Albert Einstein photo

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

From a letter to Hermann Huth, Vice-President of the German Vegetarian Federation, 27 December 1930. Supposedly published in German magazine Vegetarische Warte, which existed from 1882 to 1935. Einstein Archive 46-756. Quoted in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2011), [//books.google.it/books?id=G_iziBAPXtEC&pg=PA453 p. 453].
1930s
Context: Besides agreeing with the aims of vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.

Cassandra Clare photo
Julian of Norwich photo

“It behoved that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 27
Context: In my folly, afore this time often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not letted: for then, methought, all should have been well. This stirring was much to be forsaken, but nevertheless mourning and sorrow I made therefor, without reason and discretion.
But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said: It behoved that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Tom Robbins photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Alex Haley photo

“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

As quoted in Traits of a Healthy Family (1985) by Dolores Curran, p. 199.
Context: The family is our refuge and our springboard; nourished on it, we can advance to new horizons. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

“How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?”

James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Swan Peak

“Don’t lick the guests, darling. Bad manners.”

Source: Moon Called

Nicole Krauss photo
John Kennedy Toole photo
Audre Lorde photo
Anne Sexton photo
Jane Austen photo
Julia Quinn photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Emma Donoghue photo
Jane Austen photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Cassandra Clare photo
A.A. Milne photo
Emily Post photo
Jane Austen photo
Julian of Norwich photo

“I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 31
Context: And thus our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts that I might make, saying full comfortably: I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.

Samuel Adams photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Charlton Heston photo

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners.”

Charlton Heston (1923–2008) American actor

Speech at the Harvard Law School (1999), as quoted in "Appreciation : Charlton Heston" in TIME magazine (6 April 2008) http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1728272,00.html

Diana Gabaldon photo
Alice Hoffman photo
Aleister Crowley photo

“Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography
Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 57.
Context: Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales. … Knowing nothing and fearing everything, they rant and rave and riot like so many maniacs. The subject does not matter. Any idea which gives them an excuse of getting excited will serve. They look for a victim to chivy, and howl him down, and finally lynch him in a sheer storm of sexual frenzy which they honestly imagine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally avowable emotion. It may be an innocent Negro, a Jew like Leo Frank, a harmless half-witted German; a Christ-like idealist of the type of Debs, an enthusiastic reformer like Emma Goldman or even a doctor whose views displease the Medial Trust.

Fannie Flagg photo
Jane Austen photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Lynne Truss photo