The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Judith Martin

It’s far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

Help, Discover, Without

Freedom without rules doesn’t work. And communities do not work unless they are regulated by etiquette.

Freedom, Rules, Without

I am a traditionalist, and I’m an innovator. Most of what I do is to weigh change and legislate to the best of my ability on what should change and what should not. Do I have a respect for tradition? Of course I do. Do I have a blind belief in it? No.

Change, Best, I Am

The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life and also a personal life complete with noncompetitive leisure has never really taken hold.

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

self-confidence

When you’re in love you put up with things that when you’re out of love you cite.

A wedding invitation is sent by people who have been saying “Do we have to ask them?” to people whose first response is “How much do you think we have to spend on them?”

When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.

criticism, praise, self-esteem, virtues

If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.

etiquette, kindness, vagueness

One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.

age, courtesy, manners, miss-manners

Nobody believes that the man who says, ‘Look, lady, you wanted equality,’ to explain why he won’t give up his seat to a pregnant woman carrying three grocery bags, a briefcase, and a toddler is seized with the symbolism of idealism.

courtesy, equality, manners, miss-manners

The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don’t have to pay taxes – naturally, no one wants to live any other way.

growing-up, taxes, teenagers