Selected social quotes

1. Don't let's go to the dogs tonight, For mother will be there.

2. Charm is a way of getting the answer 'Yes' without asking a clear question.

3. The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.

4. I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.

5. I like mainly to be invisible, to sort of drift around unseen in the world.

6. But who ever yet was offered a secret and declined it?

7. Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.

8. Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

9. It's sometimes easier to do the impossible than to do the embarrassing.

10. Be a good neighbor, and leave me alone.

11. My social life is much better, since I stopped spending it with other people.

12. Before my eyes are many miserable scenes, the suffering of others and myself forces my hands to move. I become a machine for writing.

13. Young men and young women meet each other with much less difficulty than was formerly the case, and every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel.

14. I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

15. I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.

16. Keep up appearances whatever you do.

17. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.

18. How easy it is to tell tales!

19. Bores bore each other too; but it never seems to teach them anything.

20. The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.

21. Never underestimate the joy people derive from hearing something they already know.

22. The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

23. Although there exist many thousand subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet.

24. Better a dish of husks to the accompaniment of a muted lute than to be satiated with stewed shark's fin and rich spiced wine of which the cost is frequently mentioned by the provider.

25. Oppression is the essence of power.

26. The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink.

27. Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

28. Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

29. Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.

30. People with opinions just go around bothering each other.

31. One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you're too tired.

32. A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

33. It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.

34. Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow creatures and drawing them near to the Law.

35. Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.

36. We can drink till all look blue.

37. The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.

38. One good turn asketh another.

39. A nickname may be the best record of a success. That's what I call putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth.

40. Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.

41. Was Ashlee Simpson nice to me? Yes. She said 'hi' very clearly in a nice voice!

42. Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.

43. SA boys received him coolly.

44. People in Chechnya - just as throughout Russia - must have the possibility to live normally, to have rest and leisure and medical treatment and to raise and educate their children.

45. Man was formed for society.

46. Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.

47. The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.

48. The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

49. Friends - They are like air bubbles on water, hastening to flow together. History tells of Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, but why should not we put to shame those old reserved worthies by a community of such? Constantly, as it were through a remote skylight, I have glimpses of a serene friendship-land, and know the better why brooks murmur and violets grow. This conjunction of souls, like waves which met and break, subsides also backward over things, and gives all a fresh aspect. I would live henceforth with some gentle soul such a life as may be conceived, double for variety, single for harmony - two, only that we might admire at our oneness - one, because indivisible. Such community to be a pledge of holy living. How could aught unworthy be admitted into our society? To listen with one ear to each summer sound, to behold with one eye each summer scene, our visual rays so to meet and mingle with the object as to be one bent and doubled; with two tongues to be wearied, and thought to spring ceaselessly from a double fountain.

50. When Jack Benny has a party, you not only bring your own scotch, you bring your own rocks. ~ George Burns

51. The dinner table was Wilde's event and made him the greatest talker of his time:

52. ...as I felt my way along the wall I collided with what turned out to be a grandfather clock, for the existence of which I had not budgeted, and it toppled over with a sound like the delivery of several tons of coal through the roof of a conservatory. Glass crashed, pulleys and things parted from their moorings, and as I stood trying to separate my heart from the front teeth in which it had become entangled, the lights flashed on and I beheld Sir Watkyn Bassett.

53. My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that's all. God, I don't want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave individual Quality out. These can be left alone for a while. There's a place for them but they've got to be built on a foundation of Quality within the individuals involved. We've had that individual Quality in the past, exploited it as a natural resource without knowing it, and now it's just about depleted. Everyone's just about out of gumption. And I think it's about time to return to the rebuilding of this American resource...individual worth. There are political reactionaries who've been saying something close to this for years. I'm not one of them, but to the extent they're talking about real individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich, they're right. We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.

54. 'My Lords and peacocks.'

55. Enthusiasm is rude.

56. Whilst playing cards,

57. I'm mortified!