A Quote by Judith Martin

Etiquette enables you to resolve conflict without just trading insults. Without etiquette, the irritations in modern life are so abrasive that you see people turning to the law to regulate everyday behavior. This frightens me; it's a major inroad on our basic freedoms.

Judith Martin

Quote Topics

Basic Behavior Conflict Enables Etiquette Everyday Freedoms Insults Just Law Life Major Me Modern Modern Life Our People Regulate Resolve See Trading Turning Without

Quote Author

Judith Martin
American - Author
Born: September 13, 1938

You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you're trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you...There are plenty of people who say, 'We don't care about etiquette, but we can't stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don't want him around!' Etiquette doesn't have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them because their behavior is unbearable.

Judith Martin

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.

Judith Martin

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.

Judith Martin

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.

Frederick Lenz

Etiquette is all human social behavior. If you're a hermit on a mountain, you don't have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you've got a problem. It matters because we want to live in reasonably harmonious communities.

Judith Martin

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.

Judith Martin

Etiquette? What kind of etiquette was there in someone trying to murder me?

Jennifer Estep

Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.

Judith Martin

When I used to teach civil procedure as a law professor, I would begin the year by telling my students that “civil procedure is the etiquette of ritualized battle.” The phrase, which did not originate with me, captured the point that peaceful, developed societies resolve disputes by law rather than by force.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

When I used to teach civil procedure as a law professor, I would begin the year by telling my students that 'civil procedure is the etiquette of ritualized battle.' The phrase, which did not originate with me, captured the point that peaceful, developed societies resolve disputes by law rather than by force.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.

Judith Martin

Sharia is, for me, a personal basic set of guidelines that Muslims follow. It's about being respectful to elders. It's about praying five times a day. It's about etiquette that I have with members of my family. It's about inheritance, and it's about how we get married. Just the kind of basic things that anyone engages in in life.

Linda Sarsour

Whenever two people come together and their behavior affects one another, you have etiquette.

Emily Post

The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it's very cumbersome to switch to a different family.

Judith Martin

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.

Judith Martin

Etiquette is the grease that makes it possible for all of us to rub together without unnecessary overheating.