the veneer of civilization is exceedingly thin

Therefore we should be polite and soft-spoken.

Rudeness, abruptness, gory tales of blood and thunder, and coarse language usually show up the greenhorn or counterfeit, and certainly the ill-bred. “The bravest are the tenderest; the gentlest are the daring.

Politeness. Being nice is what’s left when you’ve failed at everything else.

As the head of an expedition, you can’t pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way.

You need not to love everyone, but you need to be polite with everyone, people will appreciate your politeness more than your love, because politeness is sweeter than love.

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD OL BOY AND THE NICE GAL The good of boy myth and the nice gal are a kind of social conformity myth. They create a real paradox when put together...

Politeness is okay, but it gets old and boring. You want to attack life with a passion, not a politeness, you want people to think about you and remember you and say “she is so...

He knew very well that the great majority of human conversation is meaningless. A man can get through most of his days on stock answers to stock questions, he thought. Once he catches onto the...

Politeness. Now there’s a poor man’s virtue if ever there was one. What’s so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know. After all, it’s easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite....

Jacob, get over here or I’ll freeze your underwear.” Something like that.

Ability does catches my attention, but its a politeness in the person that I remember.

Nine times out of 10, the most charming thing to say in any given situation will be the exact opposite of what one really feels.

When the Starbursts cost a cent apiece, the average number of candies per customer was 3.5, but when the price went down to zero, the average went down to 1.1 per customer. The students limited...

Politeness is organized indifference.

Something else? That’s the nice way of saying they’re bat-shit crazy.

Piety is a discipline of the will through respect. It admits the right to exist of things larger than the ego, of things different from the ego.