Emily Post Quotes

#1. Emily Post's Etiquette is out again, this time in a new and an enlarged edition, and so the question of what to do with my evenings has been all fixed up for me.

Dorothy Parker

#2. Because that's where I keep my Great Big Book of Manners by Emily Post and I want to beat you with it.

Susan Bischoff

#3. Emily Post says that talking about oneself isn't very polite.' 'I'm sure Miss Post is perfectly correct, but that doesn't seem to stop the rest of us.

Amor Towles

#4. I'm quite certain offering to carry out a contract killing violates at least two of Emily Post's etiquette rules."--Sloane Barrett, Killer Curves

Naima Simone

#5. I would have liked to know what Emily Post had to recommend in a situation like this, but as Miss Post wasn't present, I was forced to improvise.

Diana Gabaldon

#6. I love it when the Bible gives Emily Post-like tips that are both wise and easy to follow.

A. J. Jacobs

#7. Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.

Emily Post

#8. To make a pleasant and friendly impression is not only good manners, but equally good business.

Emily Post

#9. Twenty years earlier, in a life [Kirsten] mostly couldn't remember, she had had a small nonspeaking role in a short-lived Toronto production of King Lear. Now she walked in sandals whose soles had been cut from an automobile tire, three knives in her belt.

Emily St. John Mandel

#10. Good manners reflect something from inside-an innate sense of consideration for others and respect for self.

Emily Post

#11. Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.

Emily Post

#12. My grandma leaned out the backseat window, pointing at the cops. "Just so you know, I had no part in this! Ask anyone. They'll all tell you: I hate crime."
"Well, we won't mention to them how you 'forgot' to pay for those slippers at Wal-Mart, now, will we?" my mom hissed.

Emily Cassel

#13. Never say "Au revoir" unless you have been talking French, or are speaking to a French person.

Emily Post

#14. The joy of joys is the person of light but unmalicious humor. If you know any one who is gay, beguiling and amusing, you will, if you are wise, do everything you can to make him prefer your house and your table to any other; for where he is, the successful party is also.

Emily Post

#15. Training a child is exactly like training a puppy; a little heedless inattention and it is out of hand immediately; the great thing is not to let it acquire bad habits that must afterward be broken.

Emily Post

#16. A gentleman does not boast about his junk.

Emily Post

#17. The most advertised commodity is not always intrinsically the best; but is sometimes merely the product of a company, with plenty of money to spend on advertising.

Emily Post

#18. Any child can be taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are acquired is a Herculean task.

Emily Post

#19. To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a 'home' might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation.

Emily Post

#20. The fault of bad taste is usually in over-dressing. Quality not effect, is the standard to seek for.

Emily Post

#21. Manners are like primary colors, there are certain rules and once you have these you merely mix, i.e., adapt, them to meet changing situations.

Emily Post

#22. The best ingredients for likeableness are a happy expression of countenance, an unaffected manner, and a sympathetic attitude.

Emily Post

#23. Never do anything that is unpleasant to others.

Emily Post

#24. The good guest is almost invisible, enjoying him or herself, communing with fellow guests, and, most of all, enjoying the generous hospitality of the hosts.

Emily Post

#25. An overdose of praise is like 10 lumps of sugar in coffee; only a very few people can swallow it.

Emily Post

#26. There is a big deposit of sympathy in the bank of love, but don't draw out little sums every hour or so - so that by and by, when perhaps you need it badly, it is all drawn out and you yourself don't know how or on what it was spent.

Emily Post

#27. Who does not dislike a "boneless" hand extended as though it were a spray of sea-weed, or a miniature boiled pudding?

Emily Post

#28. My grandma raised her eyes to the heavens, put her hand on her heart and sighed dramatically. "Dear God, one day let my family love me for my soul instead of my remarkably elegant possessions, my shoe box full of cash, and my outstanding high-interest-rate back account...

Emily Cassel

#29. Houses without personality are a series of walled enclosures with furniture standing around in them. Other houses are filled with things of little intrinsic value, even with much that is shabby and yet they have that inviting atmosphere ...

Emily Post

#30. If God had intended for women to wear slacks, He would have constructed them differently.

Emily Post

#31. The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the writer's personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere paper.

Emily Post

#32. Rather be frumpy than vulgar! Much. Frumps are often celebrities in disguise
but a person of vulgar appearance is vulgar all through.

Emily Post

#33. A little praise is not only merest justice but is beyond the purse of no one.

Emily Post

#34. It is impossible for a hatless woman to be chic.

Emily Post

#35. Consideration for the rights and feelings of others is not merely a rule for behavior in public but the very foundation upon which social life is built.

Emily Post

#36. No rule of etiquette is of less importance than which fork we use.

Emily Post

#37. A gentleman should never take his hat off with a flourish.

Emily Post

#38. Jealousy is the suspicion of one's own inferiority.

Emily Post

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

Emily Post

#40. Nothing appeals to children more than justice, and they should be taught in the nursery to "play fair" in games, to respect each other's property and rights, to give credit to others, and not to take too much credit to themselves.

Emily Post

#41. Manner is personality - the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life.

Emily Post

#42. Custom is a mutable thing; yet we readily recognize the permanence of certain social values. Graciousness and courtesy are never old-fashioned.

Emily Post

#43. If you are hurt, whether in mind or body, don't nurse your bruises. Get up and light-heartedly, courageously, good temperedly get ready for the next encounter. This is the only way to take life - this is also 'playing' the game!

Emily Post

#44. Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.

Emily Post

#45. Unconsciousness of self is not so much unselfishness as it is the mental ability to extinguish all thought of one's self - exactly as one turns out the light.

Emily Post

#46. The honor of a gentleman demands the inviolability of his word, and the incorruptibility of his principles. He is the descendent of the knight, the crusader; he is the defender of the defenseless and the champion of justice
or he is not a gentleman.

Emily Post

#47. Three generations of women out on the front porch, four counting little Emily, trying to put words around a past and a future that could never be explained.

Lalita Tademy

#48. Never take more than your share - whether of the road in driving your car, of chairs on a boat or seats on a train, or food at the table.

Emily Post

#49. The most vulgar slang is scarcely worse than the attempted elegance which those unused to good society imagine to be the evidence of cultivation.

Emily Post

#50. When you see a woman in silks and sables and diamonds speak to a little errand girl or a footman or a scullery maid as though they were the dirt under her feet, you may be sure of one thing; she hasn't come a very long way from the ground herself.

Emily Post

#51. To tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to avoid deserved punishment
are all the blackest of black lies.

Emily Post

#52. The natural impulses of every thoroughbred include his sense of honor; his love of fair play and courage; his dislike of pretense and of cheapness.

Emily Post

#53. Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor.

Emily Post

#54. The only extra plates ever permitted are the bread and butter plates which are put on at breakfast and lunch and supper above and to the left of the forks, but never at dinner.

Emily Post

#55. The only occasion when the traditions of courtesy permit a hostess to help herself before a woman guest is when she has reason to believe the food is poisoned.

Emily Post

#56. The attributes of a great lady may still be found in the rule of the four S's: Sincerity, Simplicity, Sympathy and Serenity.

Emily Post

#57. Bread is like dressed, hats and shoes - in other words, essential!

Emily Post

#58. Courtesy demands that you, when you are a guest, shall show neither annoyance nor disappointment
no matter what happens.

Emily Post

#59. A lady never asks a gentleman to dance, or to go to supper with her.

Emily Post

#60. Golf is a particularly severe strain upon the amiability of the average person's temper, and in no other game, except bridge, is serenity of disposition so essential.

Emily Post

#61. Alas! it is true: "Be polite to bores and so shall you have bores always round about you."

Emily Post

#62. Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man - no matter who he is - that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature.

Emily Post

#63. In popular houses where visitors like to go again and again, there is always a happy combination of some attention on the part of the hostess and the perfect freedom of the guests to occupy their time as they choose.

Emily Post

#64. To do exactly as your neighbors do is the only sensible rule.

Emily Post

#65. "Keep your hands to yourself!" might almost be put at the head of the first chapter of every book on etiquette.

Emily Post

#66. Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note imaginable is better than none.

Emily Post