Judith Martin Quotes
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When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.
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Freedom without rules doesn't work. And communities do not work unless they are regulated by etiquette.
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Etiquette does not render you defenseless. If it did, even I wouldn't subscribe to it. But rudeness in retaliation for rudeness just doubles the amount of rudeness in the world.
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Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.
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Over the last couple of decades, the personalization of the office changed dramatically... there's an informality people often take for the absence of rules - which it's not.
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Learn graceful ways of saying no and of pointing out that this pressure to do something is not in line with most people's wishes.
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Email is very informal, a memo. But I find that not signing off or not having a salutation bothers me.
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There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
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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.
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We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.