"Protocol is etiquette with a government expense account."
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Quote collection
Judith Martin quotes (page 3 of 8)
144 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility."
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"Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up."
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"When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed."
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"Manners require showing consideration of all human beings, not just the ones to whom one is close."
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"Life is full of wonderful passions that come and go over the years, but the only one that will never let you down is reading."
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"There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class."
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"When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation."
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"When someone has tried to please you, it is rude, as well as disheartening, to respond by announcing that the effort was a failure."
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"Greece is a good place for rebirths."
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"A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited."
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"Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality; what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution."
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"The one prediction that never comes true is, 'You'll thank me for telling you this."
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"The underlying principles of manners- respect, fairness, and congeniality."
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"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."
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"Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue."
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"The etiquette business has its emergencies, heaven knows, but it is in the nature of etiquette emergencies that once one realizes what one has done, it is too late. One might as well get a good night's sleep and send flowers with an apology in the morning."
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"It is not rude to turn off your telephone by switching it on to an answering machine, which is cheaper and less disruptive than ripping it out of the wall. Those who are offended because they cannot always get through when they seek, at their own convenience, to barge in on people are suffering from a rude expectation."
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"Chaperons don't enforce morality; they force immorality to be discreet."
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"Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons."
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