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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."
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Exlpore more Etiquette quotes
"Take the initiative with deliberate steps to be a polite person:1. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.2. Reciprocate a thoughtful word or a good deed in kind.3. Say "excuse me" when you bump into someone, unintentionally violate someone's space, or need to get someone's attention.4. Apologize when you've made a mistake or are in the wrong.5. Live by the "Golden Rule" and treat others the way you would like to be treated.6. When dining at home or in a restaurant, wait until everyone is served before eating your meal.7. Acknowledge notable events like birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries."
"Considerations & Exceptions for Impressive Handshakes Be mindful of a person's age; be tender with arthritic hands. In that case, a loose and gentler handshake is a gesture of sensitivity and compassion. Show interest; even if your right hand is full, offer your left hand. Demonstrate respect when you are caught in an introduction while seated; try to stand. Be instinctive about when to allow the length of your handshake to linger to express unity, connection, or sympathy."
"I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."
"To cease to admire is a proof of deterioration."
"When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once."
"It is better to be polite than rude."
"Audiences who behave obscene toward prominent people have no clue that their opinions can result others to have a bad impression on them."
"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."
Explore more quotes by Bill Bryson
"Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe."
"And there was never a better time to delve for pleasure in language than the sixteenth century, when novelty blew through English like a spring breeze. Some twelve thousand words, a phenomenal number, entered the language between 1500 and 1650, about half of them still in use today, and old words were employed in ways not tried before. Nouns became verbs and adverbs; adverbs became adjectives. Expressions that could not have grammatically existed before - such as 'breathing one's last' and 'backing a horse', both coined by Shakespeare - were suddenly popping up everywhere."
"When you consider it from a human perspective, and clearly it would be difficult for us to do otherwise, life is an odd thing. It couldn't wait to get going, but then, having gotten going, it seemed in very little hurry to move on."
"The author reveals a cultural change that took place when clergy were paid based on a tax on the land's value rather than what it produced. This meant that, while parishioners could suffer through a terrible year, clergy would always have a comfortable one."
"There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person."
"It was the kind of pure, undiffused light that can only come from a really hot blue sky, the kind that makes even a concrete highway painful to behold and turns every distant reflective surface into a little glint of flame. Do you know how sometimes on very fine days the sun will shine with a particular intensity that makes the most mundane objects in the landscape glow with an unusual radiance, so that buildings and structures you normally pass without a glance suddenly become arresting, even beautiful? Well, they seem to have that light in Australia nearly all the time."
"It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively, that was merely an unintended side effect."
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