Jonathan Swift Quotes on Manners
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And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid:
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For conversation well endued; She calls it witty to be rude; And, placing raillery in railing, Will tell aloud your greatest failing.
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Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest. Give him always of the prime, And but little at a time. Carve to all but just enough, Let them neither starve nor stuff, And that you may have your due, Let your neighbor carve for you.
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Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
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Nothing is so great an instance of ill manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.
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A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.