To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.
People think, mistakenly, that etiquette means you have to suppress your differences. On the contray, etiquette is what enables you to deal with them; it gives you a set of rules.
In Buddhism we have a great deal of etiquette. Etiquette is simply ways of living to conserve energy. Etiquette allows people to live in harmony with their environment.
Observe the life like a wise tree by the side of a calm lake! Do not move; just sit and observe! Observe the Sun, observe the storms; observe the wisdom, observe the stupidities!
Ballroom dancing: it's a wonderful thing at so many levels because you've got to follow the rules. They used to call those rules etiquette once upon a time, but you don't really have that any more.
I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.
I mean I love my family very much, but there is a difference when you're reuniting with your family outside of your hometown and reuniting in the family home.
In golf, the customs and etiquette and decorum are as important as the rules of play.
There is no letter of the law to follow in Zen. There is a lot of etiquette, but there are no rules.
passion of any sort is seldom governed by the rules of etiquette.
Skyping with your spouse works well enough, but apparently it is hard to get the kids to hang out on Skype for long.
Therefore, a person should first be changed by a teacher's instructions, and guided by principles of ritual. Only then can he observe the rules of courtesy and humility, obey the conventions and rules of society, and achieve order.
Etiquette? What kind of etiquette was there in someone trying to murder me?
You have to observe a few simple rules in dressing, which are really not rules; it's just being appropriate. If you're 70 and want to wear miniskirts, 70-year-old knees ain't pretty!
The rewards of golf, and of life too I expect, are worth very little if you don't play the game by the etiquette as well as by the rules.
Etiquette is about all of human social behavior. Behavior is regulated by law when etiquette breaks down or when the stakes are high - violations of life, limb, property and so on. Barring that, etiquette is a little social contract we make that we will restrain some of our more provocative impulses in return for living more or less harmoniously in a community.