Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
Jonathan Swift

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.
Benjamin Disraeli

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.
Thomas Hardy

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.
Alexander Pope

On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.
George Mikes

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral laws are written on the table of eternity.
Lord Acton

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.
R. Buckminster Fuller

Persian social manners are well known, and there is no other society that can compete with them.
Moshe Katsav

Politeness is half good manners and half good lying.
Mary Wilson Little

Politeness is only one half good manners and the other half good lying.
Mary Wilson Little

Prithee don't screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners.
Colley Cibber

Promptitude is not only a duty, but is also a part of good manners; it is favorable to fortune, reputation, influence, and usefulness; a little attention and energy will form the habit, so as to make it easy and delightful.
Charles Simmons

Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.
Laurence Sterne

Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.
Benjamin Franklin

She had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.
Louisa May Alcott

Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Taste is more to do with manners than appearances. Taste is both myth and reality; it is not a style.
Stephen Bayley

Teach love, generosity, good manners and some of that will drift from the classroom to the home and who knows, the children will be educating the parents.
Roger Moore

The decline of manners, the cynical pursuit without shame or restraint of personal advantage and of money characterizes our times, not without exceptions, of course, but more than we ought to be comfortable with.
J. Irwin Miller