Good Breeding Quotes

Good breeding in cattle depends on physical health, but in men on a well-formed character.

Not everyone knows how to be silent or to leave in good time. It happens that even people of good breeding fail to notice that their presence provokes in the weary or preoccupied host a feeling akin to hatred, and that this feeling is tensely concealed and covered up with lies.

Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.

One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

People of small calibre are always carping. How affected so-and-so is! Don’t you think he is silly? He was certainly quite mistaken about this or that. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or their prowess or good breeding.

The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections, friendships, require a degree of good-breeding both to preserve and cement them.

The well-mannered man never puts out his hand in greeting until a lady extends hers. This is a test of good breeding that is constantly applied. … The first move in the direction of cordiality must come from the lady, the whole code of behaviour being based on the assumption that she is the social superior.

It is easy to distinguish between the joking that reflects good breeding and that which is coarse-the one, if aired at an apposite moment of mental relaxation, is becoming in the most serious of men, whereas the other is unworthy of any free person, if the content is indecent or the expression obscene.

Good-breeding is the art of showing men, by external signs, the internal regard we have for them. It arises from good sense, improved by conversing with good company.

The Fashionable World is grown free and easie; our Manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish as an agreeable Negligence. In a word, Good Breeding shows it self most, where to an ordinary Eye it appears the least.

Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.

Passion must be concealed in a society where cold reserve and indifference are the signs of good breeding.

While the proximate ground of discrimination may be of another kind, still the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time.

You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.

A man’s own good breeding is the best security against other people’s ill manners.

Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding.

Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

It is good breeding alone that can prepossess people in your favor at first sight, more time being necessary to discover greater talents.

Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good breeding.

Good breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies.

Women of quality are so civil, you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

If proportion is the good breeding of architecture, symmetry, or the answering of one part to another, may be defined as the sanity of decoration.

The intelligence of affection is carried on by the eye only; good-breeding has made the tongue falsify the heart, and act a part of continued restraint, while nature has preserved the eyes to herself, that she may not be disguised or misrepresented.

The scholar without good breeding is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic.

People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding.

Though shyness per se was unacceptable, reserve was a mark of good breeding.

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

Nothing can constitute good-breeding that has not good-nature for its foundation.

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.

The British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding.

Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.

Compliments of congratulation are always kindly taken, and cost nothing but pen, ink and paper. I consider them as draughts upon good breeding, where the exchange is always greatly in favor of the drawer.

Yes, yes, children must early be made to practise piety, godliness, and propriety; a person of good breeding is one into whom good maxims have been instilled and impressed, poured in through a funnel, thrashed in and preached in.

Fashion understands itself; good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure.

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.

It is a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people’s manners, but drowning would help.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.

Real good-breeding is independent of the forms and refinements of what has assumed to itself the name of society.

Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.

I would throw out the sense of nation, “good breeding,” certain forms and ceremonies that govern relationships – perhaps even jealousy. We’re not aware of all of them yet, though we suffer from them. And they mislead us not only about ethics but also about aesthetics.