A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Quote Topics

Desire Oneself Polite Politeness Treated

Quote Author

Francois de La Rochefoucauld
French - Writer
September 15, 1613 - March 17, 1680

You lose nothing by being polite. The answer is 'No', but please say it politely and give the reasons. ... Explain to me why 'No'. Don't change 'No' to 'Yes'. Don't be a fool. If there was a good reason why it is 'No', it must remain 'No', but the man must be told politely.

Mr. Lee

Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known.

Mark Epstein

Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.

Otto von Bismarck

The whole country wants civility. Why don't we have it? It doesn't cost anything. No federal funding, no legislation is involved. One answer is the unwillingness to restrain oneself. Everybody wants other people to be polite to them, but they want the freedom of not having to be polite to others.

Judith Martin

When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.

Judith Martin

Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

Friedrich Nietzsche

My parents raised me to treat people the way you would want to be treated and to be polite. Sometimes, when I get nervous or insecure, I might overcompensate and might not be totally true to what I am feeling inside. But I get nervous and maybe too smiley and polite.

Paul Rudd

To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.

Edmond Rostand

True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply consists in treating others just as you love to be treated yourself.

Lord Chesterfield

Menon the Thessalian did not either conceal his immoderate desire of riches or his desire of commanding, in order to increase them, or of being esteemed for the same reason. He desired to be well with those in power, that his injustice might escape punishment.

Xenophon

Pride is an established conviction of one’s own paramount worth in some particular respect, while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.

Eric Hoffer

Probably the most potent desire for a painter, an image-maker, is to see it. To see what the mind can think and imagine, to realize it for oneself, through oneself, as concretely as possible.

Philip Guston

Yes, Consul. The next time one of our esteemed members turns into a worm and eats another esteemed member, we will inform you immediately.

Cassandra Clare

No use to preach to the working-man courtesy & politeness when at the same time the working-man is not given working conditions under which he can stay polite and soft-mannered.