Emily Post Quotes

42 Sourced Quotes

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

Emily Post
To tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to avoid deserved punishment-are all the blackest of black lies. On the other hand, to teach one to try one's best to avoid the truth-even to press it when necessary toward the outer edge of the rainbow-for a reason of kindness, or of mercy, is far closer to the heart of truth than to repeat something accurately and mercilessly that will cruelly hurt the feelings of someone.

Emily Post
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
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
The fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly tempting. Coarse or profane slang is beside the mark, but "flivver," "taxi," the "movies," "deadly" (meaning dull), "feeling fit," "feeling blue," "grafter," a "fake," "grouch," "hunch" and "right o!" are typical of words that it would make our spoken language stilted to exclude.

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

Emily Post
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
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
Children are all more or less little monkeys in that they imitate everything they see. If their mother treats them exactly as she does her visitors they in turn play "visitor" to perfection. Nothing hurts the feelings of children more than not being allowed to behave like grown persons when they think they are able.

Emily Post
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
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
Excepting a religious ceremonial, there is no occasion where greater dignity of manner is required of ladies and gentlemen both, than in occupying a box at the opera. For a gentleman especially no other etiquette is so exacting.

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

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

Emily Post
One very great annoyance in open air gatherings is cigar smoke when blown directly in one's face or worse yet the smoke from a smouldering cigar. It is almost worthy of a study in air currents to discover why with plenty of space all around, a tiny column of smoke will make straight for the nostrils of the very one most nauseated by it!

Emily Post
People who picnic along the public highway leaving a clutter of greasy paper and swill (not a pretty name, but neither is it a pretty object!) for other people to walk or drive past, and to make a breeding place for flies, and furnish nourishment for rats, choose a disgusting way to repay the land-owner for the liberty they took in temporarily occupying his property.

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

Emily Post
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
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
There is no reason why you should be bored when you can be otherwise. But if you find yourself sitting in the hedgerow with nothing but weeds, there is no reason for shutting your eyes and seeing nothing, instead of finding what beauty you may in the weeds. To put it cynically, life is too short to waste it in drawing blanks. Therefore, it is up to you to find as many pictures to put on your blank pages as possible.

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

Emily Post
To be a good sportsman, one must be a stoic and never show rancor in defeat, or triumph in victory, or irritation, no matter what annoyance is encountered. One who can not help sulking, or explaining, or protesting when the loser, or exulting when the winner, has no right to take part in games or contests.

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

Emily Post
A gentleman should never take his hat off with a flourish.

Emily Post
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
Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them.

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

Emily Post