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" I try to behave myself, and I succeed. "
Judith Martin
Try
Behave
Myself
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" 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. "
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" The language of clothing is high symbolism and we all, in moments where we need to know this, realize it. "
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" Email is very informal, a memo. But I find that not signing off or not having a salutation bothers me. "
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" You glance at an e-mail. You give more attention to a real letter. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" Chaperons don't enforce morality; they force immorality to be discreet. "
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Force
Discreet
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" We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society. "
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Must
Spontaneous
Fresh
" Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not. "
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Political
" You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do. "
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Right
You
Everything
" 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. "
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Just
Etiquette
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" It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. "
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Good
Help
More
" The mistake people keep making is that if they find a wonderful new tool, like email, they have to give up all others. They don't. You have simply added another very useful means to your communications repertoire. "
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People
Others
Mistake
" Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue. "
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Sin
Hypocrisy
Virtue
" 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. "
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Change
I Am
Respect
" People read informality as, 'Do whatever you feel like,' and whatever you feel like might be disastrous. "
Judith Martin
Like
You
Whatever
" Over the last couple of decades, the personalization of the office changed dramatically... there's an informality people often take for the absence of rules - which it's not. "
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Last
Rules
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" Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress. "
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Mean
Face
Honesty
" My children did not go through a stage of being rude to their parents. I'm sorry if that sounds incredible. "
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Children
Rude
Sorry
" Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one. "
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New
People
Out
" When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed. "
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Behavior
Ugly
Society
" 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. "
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House
White
Career
" '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. "
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Honesty
Name
Life
" I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures. "
Judith Martin
Rules
Principles
Manners
" 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. "
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Advertising
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Work
" 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. "
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Responsibility
Job
Know
" 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. "
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Attention
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" For email, the old postcard rule applies. Nobody else is supposed to read your postcards, but you'd be a fool if you wrote anything private on one. "
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Fool
" When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation. "
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Yourself
" If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached. "
Judith Martin
Directions
Alone
Need