Common Courtesy Quotes

I respect the social graces enormously. How to pass the food. Don't yell from one room to another. Don't go through a closed door without a knock. Open the doors for the ladies. All these millions of simple household behaviors make for a better life. We can't live in constant rebellion against our parents - it's just silly. I'm very well mannered. It's not an abstract thing. It's a shared language of expectations.

I have heard women complain about men holding doors for them,, as if it is inherently offensive and implies that they are weak. ... I would hold a door for anyone. ... It has to do with noticing our fellow human beings and saying, "I recognize that you're on this planet, and I don't want a door hitting you in the face.

To talk of prayer after admitting he professed no faith was, in my opinion, a breach of common courtesy. In this sense, he did make a social blunder, for which I think he well deserved some minor castigation.

Manners require showing consideration of all human beings, not just the ones to whom one is close.

When you've finished using a car, put the f***ing seat back, so humans can use it afterwards.

Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challengeis; they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.

He was so generally civil, that nobody thanked him for it.

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency.

It starts when you begin to overlook good manners. Any time you quit hearing Sir and Mam the end is pretty much in sight.

We must recall the most important of humanity guidelines: Be polite. Being polite is possibly the greatest daily contribution everyone can make to life on Earth.

Courtesy is fine and heaven knows we need more and more of it in a rude and frenetic world, but mechanized courtesy is as pallid as Pablum ... in fact, it isn't even courtesy.

In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all.

I believe that treating other people well is a lost art.

People say 'Why would you learn Dutch? Nobody speaks it. Why not French?' Even the Dutch say that to me! I say because I want to live here, I think it's only common courtesy that I speak the language.

Leaning forward in your chair when someone is trying to squeeze behind you isn't enough. You also have to move the chair.

I'm not the kind of guy to knock at a door and then when the door is opened not go in.

I just want to be treated like an average guy.

People should be nice to you, Leonard. You're a human being. You should expect people to be nice.

The code of the road is, if there is anything to eat, eat; if there is a place to sit, sit; if there is a restroom, go.

The guard rails on a highway may restrict some folks from driving the way they want, but those rules mostly end up saving the lives of those other drivers who understand that living in a society means behaving in a commonly beneficial way.

Equality is the measure of all things, and bad behavior is less bad if everyone indulges in it.

When somebody doesn't use common sense, I get frustrated. When I'm driving down the highway and someone is in the left-hand lane, and they're going very slow, sometimes I just go around them, and other times I'll be in the mood where I flash my lights and yell at them, like, 'What the heck are you doing? Get the heck out of my way!'

As I am sure you know, when people say 'It's my pleasure,' they usually mean something along the lines of, 'There's nothing on Earth I would rather do less.' [...]

Courtesy is the due of man to man; not of suit-of-clothes to suit-of-clothes.

I don't like it when people don't hold the door. I don't know, that really bugs me... I guess I like manners.