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"Conventional manners are a kind of literacy test for the alien who comes among us."
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"Victorian rigidities were such that ladies were not even allowed to blow out candles in mixed company, as that required them to pucker their lips suggestively. They could not say that they were going "to bed"--that planted too stimulating an image--but merely that they were "retiring." It became effectively impossible to discuss clothing in even a clinical sense without resort to euphemisms. Trousers became "nether integuments" or simply "inexpressibles" and underwear was "linen." Women could refer among themselves to petticoats or, in hushed tones, stockings, but could mention almost nothing else that brushed bare flesh."
"Dining with the King; your attire, attitude and mentality must change."
"He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest."
"He looks around at his guests. All are prepared. A Latin grace; English would be his choice, but he will suit his company. Who cross themselves ostentatiously, in papist style. Who look at him, expectant. He shouts for the waiters. The doors burst open. Sweating men heave the platters to the table. It seems the meat is fresh, in fact not slaughtered yet. It is just a minor breach of etiquette. The company must sit and salivate. The Boleyns are laid at his hand to be carved."
"You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate,' Ellen told her daughter. 'You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls."
"Don't lick the guests, darling. Bad manners."
"It's not bad to cough. But cover your mouth when coughing. It's not bad to complain. But cover your mouth when complaining, else you'll spread infections of complains on us!"
"What is acceptable on a personal level is very different from what is acceptable on a business level. When we utilize touch well, we can elevate our presentation, demonstrate respect, and convey confidence. However, when we use touch poorly, it can be disastrous, personally and professionally."
"Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding."
Explore more quotes by Katharine Fullerton Gerould
"Ignorance of what real learning is, and a consequent suspicion of it; materialism, and a consequent intellectual laxity, both of these have done destructive work in the colleges."
"The real drawback to the simple life is that it is not simple. If you are living it, you positively can do nothing else. There is not time."
"One of the reasons, surely, why women have been credited with less perfect veracity than men is that the burden of conventional falsehood falls chiefly on them."
"Civilization is merely an advance in taste: accepting, all the time, nicer things, and rejecting nasty ones."
"Educational legislation nowadays is largely in the hands of illiterate people, and the illiterate will take good care that their illiteracy is not made a reproach on them."
"There is no morality by instinct. There is no social salvation in the end without taking thought; without mastery of logic and application of logic to human experience."
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