A Quote by Maria Edgeworth

Politeness only teaches us to save others from unnecessary pain.... You are not bound by politeness to tell any falsehoods.

Maria Edgeworth

Quote Topics

Any Bound Only Others Pain Politeness Save Teaches Tell Unnecessary Us

Quote Author

Maria Edgeworth
Irish - Writer
January 1, 1767 - May 22, 1849

There is a certain amount of politeness here in America, which is probably more than just politeness.

Yiyun Li

You can do a lot more with weapons and politeness than just politeness.

Vladimir Putin

To the acquisition of the rare quality of politeness, so much of the enlightened understanding is necessary that I cannot but consider every book in every science, which tends to make us wiser, and of course better men, as a treatise on a more enlarged system of politeness.

Harold Monro

But pain is hard to put into words and in life there is always pain. It’s as natural as birth or death. Pain makes us who we are, it teaches us and tames us, it can destroy and it can save.

Anna McPartlin

Politeness has been defined to be artificial good-nature; but we may affirm, with much greater propriety, that good-nature is natural politeness.

Stanislaw I Leszczynski

True politeness is to social life what oil is to machinery, a thing to oil the ruts and grooves of existence. False politeness can shine without warming and glitter without vivifying.

Frances Harper

That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed. But it sometimes happens that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great merits and high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve with a ridiculous condescension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves.

Charles Caleb Colton

The only true source of politeness is consideration,--that vigilant moral sense which never loses sight of the rights, the claims, and the sensibilities of others. This is the one quality, over all others, necessary to make a gentleman.

William Gilmore Simms

As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set; Their want of edge from their offence is seen, Both pain us least when exquisitely keen.

Edward Young

It seems to me that the spirit of politeness is a certain attention in causing that, by our words and by our manners, others may be content with us and with themselves.

Jean de la Bruyere

True politeness is consideration for the opinions of others. It has been said of dogmatism that it is only puppyism come to its full growth; and certainly the worst form this quality can assume is that of opinionativeness and arrogance.