Top 100 Judith Martin Quotes
#1. The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way.
Judith Martin
#2. You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do.
Judith Martin
#3. There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.
Judith Martin
#4. 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.
Judith Martin
#5. A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.
Judith Martin
#6. She only maintains that it is possible, under some circumstances, for a lady to murder her husband; but that a woman who wears ankle-strap shoes and smokes on the street corner, though she may be a joy to all who know her and have devoted her life to charity, could never qualify as a lady.
Judith Martin
#7. People read informality as, 'Do whatever you feel like,' and whatever you feel like might be disastrous.
Judith Martin
#8. The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.
Judith Martin
#9. Ideological differences are no excuse for rudeness.
Judith Martin
#10. When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
Judith Martin
#11. You don't want to look too chic at a Washington party or people will think you don't have a job worth losing.
Judith Martin
#12. First. I began my career as a copy girl. and the White House coverage, for example, was in the then-Women's section. So it was social coverage. It wasn't news, although we often got rather startling news out of it.
Judith Martin
#13. Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality; what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution.
Judith Martin
#14. 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
#15. [after the death of a loved one] It is when there is nothing more to be done that the reality of the loss often hits with full force.
Judith Martin
#16. One should not be assigned one's identity in society by the job slot one happens to fill. If we truly believe in the dignity of labor, any task can be performed with equal pride because none can demean the basic dignity of a human being.
Judith Martin
#17. It doesn't matter whether the bride or the bridegroom writes the letters of thanks for wedding presents provided that these go out immediately after the arrival of each present and are not in the handwriting of the bride's mother.
Judith Martin
#18. 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
#19. We have the reverse of the Puritan work ethic in America now. No one ever becomes a star by plugging along year after year. What is needed is flair, talent, 'an eye,' contacts, charisma, and, most of all, naturalness.
Judith Martin
#20. Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without a comment is a wonderful social grace ... Children who have the habit of constantly correcting should be stopped before they grow up to drive spouses and everyone else crazy by interrupting stories to say, 'No, dear
it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.
Judith Martin
#21. Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one.
Judith Martin
#22. A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.
Judith Martin
#23. There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
Judith Martin
#24. Many of the guests will eventually leave the table to watch football on television, which would be a rudeness at any other occasion but is a relief at Thanksgiving and probably the only way to get those people to budge.
Judith Martin
#25. I am a traditionalist, and I'm an innovator. Most of what I do is to weigh change and legislate to the best of my ability on what should change and what should not. Do I have a respect for tradition? Of course I do. Do I have a blind belief in it? No.
Judith Martin
#26. The truly essential bargain between host and guest requires the guest only to respond promptly, show up on time, socialize with other guests, thank the host, write additional thanks and reciprocate. You needn't bring anything.
Judith Martin
#27. We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility.
Judith Martin
#28. Meanwhile, the empty forms of social behavior survive inappropriately in business situations. We all know that when a business sends its customers 'friendly reminders,' it really means business.
Judith Martin
#29. People, in forming their opinions of others, are usually lazy enough to go by whatever is most obvious or whatever chance remark they happen to hear. So the best policy is to dictate to others the opinion you want them to have of you.
Judith Martin
#30. The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold.
Judith Martin
#31. Obviously I'm going to be polite, so nobody has anything to fear from me.
Judith Martin
#32. The more skillful the performance of false cheer, the more pleasing the effect is upon one's public and on that private audience to whom one owes even more.
Judith Martin
#33. When someone has tried to please you, it is rude, as well as disheartening, to respond by announcing that the effort was a failure.
Judith Martin
#34. It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one's marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can't afford to do anyway are vulgar.
Judith Martin
#35. It has always puzzled me, in my business, that people think they have to answer questions, no matter how disagreeable or dangerous, just because they were asked. Of course, we journalists would be out of business if they didn't.
Judith Martin
#36. Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
Judith Martin
#37. If you put together all the ingredients that naturally attract children - sex, violence, revenge, spectacle and vigorous noise - what you have is grand opera.
Judith Martin
#38. We are all born rude. No infant has ever appeared yet with the grace to understand how inconsiderate it is to disturb others in the middle of the night.
Judith Martin
#39. You think death is any better an excuse for desertion than any other?
Judith Martin
#40. 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
#42. One of the big no-nos in cyberspace is that you do not go into a social activity, a chat group or something like that, and start advertising or selling things. This etiquette rule is an attempt to separate one's social life, which should be pure enjoyment and relaxation, from the pressures of work.
Judith Martin
#43. It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.
Judith Martin
#44. The family dinner table is the cornerstone of civilization and those who 'graze' from refrigerators or in front of the television sets are doomed to remain in a state of savagery.
Judith Martin
#45. A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.
Judith Martin
#46. The challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.
Judith Martin
#47. Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards.
Judith Martin
#48. Women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed; there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.
Judith Martin
#49. We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
Judith Martin
#50. People who put slipcovers, doilies, plastic protectors, and cellophane on everything good that they own rarely live to see an occasion so good that all these covers are removed.
Judith Martin
#51. College women are typically given to declaring for one or the other (in my day, for marriage; now, generally, for careers), and only later finding to their surprise that they must cope with both
while their men may be trying to figure out how to get out of doing both.
Judith Martin
#52. You glance at an e-mail. You give more attention to a real letter.
Judith Martin
#53. Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
Judith Martin
#54. What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.
Judith Martin
#55. When you're in love, you put up with things that, when you're out of love you cite.
Judith Martin
#56. A wedding invitation is sent by people who have been saying, "Do we have to ask them?" to people whose first response is, "How much do you think we have to spend on them?
Judith Martin
#57. Why bring children into a world where no one writes letters?
Judith Martin
#58. What restricts the use of the word 'lady' among the courteous is that it is intended to set a woman apart from ordinary humanity, and in the working world that is not a help, as women have discovered in many bitter ways.
Judith Martin
#59. Parents should conduct their arguments in quiet, respectful tones, but in a foreign language. You'd be surprised what an inducement that is to the education of children.
Judith Martin
#60. It is said that dispensing advice is easy. What is difficult is getting anyone to listen to it.
Judith Martin
#61. There is nothing like a good friend to help you out when you are not in trouble.
Judith Martin
#63. You should resolve not to seek public approval of your private business, when you are not also prepared to accept public disapproval.
Judith Martin
#64. The underlying principles of manners- respect, fairness, and congeniality.
Judith Martin
#65. People will say, 'Seventy isn't old, it's middle-aged,' and I think, middle of what - 140?
Judith Martin
#66. When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
Judith Martin
#67. The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.
Judith Martin
#68. I have always believed that the key to a happy marriage was the ability to say with a straight face, 'Why, I don't know what you're worrying about. I thought you were very funny last night and I'm sure everybody else did, too.
Judith Martin
#69. The only way to enjoy the fun of catching people behaving disgustingly is to have children. One has to keep having them, however, because it is incorrect to correct grown people, even if you have grown them yourself.
Judith Martin
#70. Appearing to pay attention when someone is speaking is one of the cornerstones of real social interaction.
Judith Martin
#71. My children did not go through a stage of being rude to their parents. I'm sorry if that sounds incredible.
Judith Martin
#72. The stress of making small talk with in-laws is called being part of a family.
Judith Martin
#73. If it's against state law, it's generally considered a breach of Etiquette.
Judith Martin
#75. Sometimes we do things a certain way just because that is the way we do things.
Judith Martin
#76. Miss Manners herself, while never rude, is given to pulling a fast pinch in the way of a handshake on those who believe in kissing on, not even the first date, but the first sighting.
Judith Martin
#77. A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.
Judith Martin
#78. Fairness does not consist so much of everybody's doing the same thing, but of everybody's being willing to do something that others don't want to do.
Judith Martin
#80. Like language, a code of manners can be used with more or less skill, for laudable or for evil purposes, to express a great variety of ideas and emotions. In itself, it carries no moral value, but ignorance in use of this tool is not a sign of virtue.
Judith Martin
#81. When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.
Judith Martin
#82. 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.
Judith Martin
#83. Life is full of wonderful passions that come and go over the years, but the only one that will never let you down is reading.
Judith Martin
#84. The one prediction that never comes true is, 'You'll thank me for telling you this.
Judith Martin
#85. 'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty.
Judith Martin
#86. Yes, etiquette is hypocritical. Yes, it does inhibit children - if you're lucky. But the idea that it's elitist and irrelevant is like saying language is elitist and irrelevant.
Judith Martin
#87. Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
Judith Martin
#88. The greater the controversy, the more you need manners.
Judith Martin
#89. Freedom without rules doesn't work. And communities do not work unless they are regulated by etiquette.
Judith Martin
#90. Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
Judith Martin
#92. Eating grapes with a knife and fork is not what one would call refined. It is what one would call ludicrous.
Judith Martin
#93. The idea that people can behave naturally, without resorting to an artificial code tacitly agreed upon by their society, is as silly as the idea that they can communicate by a spoken language without commonly accepted semantic and grammatical rules.
Judith Martin
#94. The dinner table is the center for the teaching and practicing not just of table manners but of conversation, consideration, tolerance, family feeling, and just about all the other accomplishments of polite society except the minuet.
Judith Martin
#95. Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.
Judith Martin
#96. The language of clothing is high symbolism and we all, in moments where we need to know this, realize it.
Judith Martin
#97. It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.
Judith Martin
#98. Presents are symbolic. When you give them in your personal life, they should show that you are paying attention to the person to whom you're giving them.
Judith Martin
#99. Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.
Judith Martin
#100. 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
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