MAN - MARINES


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	MAN/MANKIND --- MANCHESTER --- MANNERS MANUAL LABOR --- MAPS --- MARATHONS MARCH --- MARINES . . . MAN/MANKIND see: "THE HUMAN RACE" for related links It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children. --attributed to Sir Kingsley Amis (1922—1995) English novelist, poet, critic, and father of Martin Amis. Mankind is of four classes: He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is simple. Teach him. He who knows,and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise. Follow him. --Arabian proverb There never was such beauty in another man. Nature made him, and then broke the mould. --Ludovico Ariosto (1474—1533) Italian poet. _Orlando furioso_, Canto x., Stanza 84 [1516] Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law and without justice. If he finds himself an individual who cannot live in society, or who pretends he has need of only his own resources, do not consider him as a member of humanity; he is a savage beast or a god. --Aristotle (384—322 B.C.) Greek philosopher. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 323 [15th ed. 1894]. You are the man! --_Bible_ "2 Samuel" 12:7 A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links. --Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. _The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906] (Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.) Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brillance without wisdom, power without conscience. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. --Omar Bradley (1893—1981) American general. In an address in Boston [10 November 1948]. Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn. --Robert Burns (1759—1796) Scottish poet and songwriter. "Man Was Made to Mourn" [1786] Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour, Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power — Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, Degraded mass of animated dust! Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat, Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit! By nature vile, ennobled but by name, Each kindered brute might bid thee blush for shame. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824) English Romantic poet and satirist. "Epitaph To A Dog", a tribute to his dog "Boatswain"; on a monument in the garden of Newstead Abbey. - No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men. --Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. _On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History_, Lecture 1 [1841] What is man? A foolish baby, Vainly strives, and fights, and frets. Demanding all, deserving nothing, One small grave is what he gets. --Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. "Cui Bono", st. 3 - I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections. --William Congreve (1670—1729) English dramatist. Letter to Dennis [1695], in John C. Hodges (ed.) _William Congreve: Letters and Documents_ [1964]. The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs. --Charles de Gaulle (1890—1970) French soldier and statesman, President [1959—1969]. Attributed in "Time" magazine [1967]. (See Toussenel, below.) No Man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any Mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. --John Donne (1572—1631) English poet and dean of St. Paul's [1621—1631]. "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions", no. 17 [1624] Human kind Cannot bear very much reality. --T.S. Eliot (1888—1965) Anglo-American poet, critic, and dramatist. "Burnt Norton" pt. I [1936] I like man, but not men. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882) American philosopher and poet. _Journal_ [April-May 1846] (see Swift quote below) I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. --William Faulkner (1897—1962) American novelist. Nobel Prize Speech [10 December 1950]. He who undertakes to guide men must never lose sight of the fact that they are malicious monkeys. ... The folly of the revolution was in aiming to establish virtue on the earth. When you want to make men good and wise, free, moderate, generous, you are led inevitably to the desire of killing them all. --Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924) French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. Quoted in Barry Cerf _Anatole France, the Degeneration of a Great Artist_ [1926]. I am ashamed of humanity, I blush for the age. Let us admit the truth; philosophy and the arts are only diffused among a few; the great mass, the people and the vulgar nobles, remain as nature made them, that is, malevolent animals. --Frederick II [Frederick the Great] (1712—1786) King of Prussia [1740-86]. Letter to Voltaire [11 April 1759], quoted in M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_, p. 475 [2004]. I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think. --Sigmund Freud (1856—1939) Austrian psychiatrist. Letter to Oskar Pfister [9 October 1918]. Of all the animals on earth man has shown himself to be the most cruel and brutal. He is the only animal that will create instruments of death for his own destruction. Man is the only animal on all the earth that has ever been known to burn its young as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of some imaginary deity. He is the only one who will build homes, towns and cities at such a cost in sacrifice and suffering and turn around and destroy them in war. --attributed to "an American hill-country philosopher" by J. William Fulbright in _Old Myths and New Realities_ [1964]. Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. --William Hazlitt (1778—1830) English essayist. _Lectures on the English Comic Writers_ [1819] "On Wit and Humor" Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be in the bargain, is simply the most formidable of all the beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species. --William James (1842—1910) American philosopher. "Remarks at the Peace Banquet", speech in Boston, Mass. [7 October 1904]. As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly. --Samuel Johnson (1709—1784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ (Entry for September 1783) [1791]. Every man lives behind bars, which he carries within him. --Franz Kafka (1883—1924) Czech novelist. In Gustav Janouch _Conversations with Kafka_, tr. Goronwy Rees [1953]. I have no high opinion of human beings: they are always going to fight and do nasty things to each other. They are always going to be part animal, governed by their emotions and subconscious drives rather than by reason. --George Frost Kennan (1904—2005) Ambassador to the USSR in 1952, and to Yugoslavia from 1961 to 1963 and chief architect of the U.S. Cold War policy of containment and deterrence against communism. In an interview with George Urban published in "Encounter" magazine, September, 1976. - If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise. If you can dream — and not make dreams your master, If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son! --Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936) English writer and poet. "If" [1910] - The four stages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence and obsolescence. --Art Linkletter (1912—2010) Canadian-born American radio and television personality. _A Child's Garden of Misinformation_, ch. 8 [1965] Painted on the side of our Sunday school wall were the words, God is Love. We always assumed that these three words were spoken directly to the four of us in our family and had no reference to the world outside, which my brother and I soon discovered was full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the farther one gets from Missoula, Montana. --Norman Maclean (1902—1990) American novelist and academic. _A River Runs Through It_ [1976] - No one in this world, as far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956) American journalist and literary critic. "Notes on Journalism" in _Chicago Tribune_ [19 September 1926]. The existence of most human beings is of absolutely no significance to history or to human progress. They live and die as anonymously and as nearly uselessly as so many bullfrogs or houseflies. They are, at best, undifferentiated slaves upon an endless assembly line, and at worse they are robots who leave their mark upon time only by occasionally falling into the machinery, and so incommoding their betters. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956) American journalist and literary critic. _Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_ [1956] It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone — that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. The men of the educated minority, no doubt, know more than their predecessors, and of some of them, perhaps, it may be said that they are more civilized — though I should not like to be put to giving names — but the great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956) American journalist and literary critic. Quoted in S.T. Joshi (ed.) _H.L. Mencken on Religion_ [2002]. - I enjoy vast delight in the folly of mankind; and, God be praised, that is an inexhaustible source of entertainment. --Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [née Pierrepont] (1689—1762) English aristocrat and writer. Letter to the Countess of Mar [1725]. Man is quite insane. He would not know how to create a mite, and he creates gods by the dozens. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592) French moralist and essayist. _Essais_ (Essays) [94 chapters written 1571—1580 & published 1580; the last 13 chapters were written 1585—1587 & published 1588.] Bk. 3, ch. 2 [1580]. What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe. --Blaise Pascal (1623—1662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. _Pensees_ No. 434 [1670] - Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. --Alexander Pope (1688—1744) English poet. _Essay on Man_, epistle II [1733] An honest man's the noblest work of God. --Alexander Pope (1688—1744) English poet. "An Essay on Man", Epistle 4, l. 248 [1734] - I like to see a man standing at the foot of a skyscraper. It makes him no bigger than an ant — isn't that the correct bromide for the occasion? The God-damn fools! It's the man who made it — the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. It doesn't dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals his true dimensions to the world. --Ayn Rand (1905—1982) Russian-born American writer. _The Fountainhead_, pt. III, ch. 9 [1943] Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry. --J.D. Salinger (1919—2010) American novelist and short-story writer. _Catcher in the Rye_ [1951], ch. 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini. I love mankind — it's people I can't stand. --Charles Schulz (1922—2000) American cartoonist. _Go Fly A Kite, Charlie Brown_ [1960] Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile. --Albert Schweitzer (1875—1965) Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor. Quoted in James Cameron _Point of Departure: An Attempt at Autobiography_ [1967]. - What fools these mortals be. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.— 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. _Epistles_, 1, "On Saving Time" & Lord, what fools these mortals be! --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, III, ii [1595—1596] - What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Hamlet_, II, ii [1601] Man is a social animal. --Benedict de Spinoza (1632—1677) Dutch-Jewish philosopher, the foremost exponent of 17th century Rationalism. _Ethics_, pt. IV [1677] Man is a strange animal; he doesn't like to read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it. --Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965) American Democratic politician. Quoted in James Reston _Deadline: a Memoir_, ch. 31 [1991]. I hate and detest that animal called Man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. --Jonathan Swift (1667—1745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. Letter to Alexander Pope [29 September 1725]. (See Emerson, above.) - We cannot be kind to each other here for an hour; we whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame. However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809—1892) English poet. _Maud; A Monodra_ [1856] Man is man, and master of his fate. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809—1892) English poet. "Geraint and Enid" - We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth's creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still. --Lewis Thomas (1913—1993) American physician, reseacher, administrator, and author. _The Medusa and the Snail_ [1979] "The Youngest and Brightest Thing Around" The more one gets to know of men, the more one values dogs. --Alphonse Toussenel (1803—1885) French writer. _L'Esprit des Bêtes_, ch. 3 [1847] (See de Gaulle, above.) - There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ [1889] If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894] ch. 16 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Following the Equator_ [1897], ch. 66 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All I care to know is that a man is a human being — that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "Concerning the Jews" [1899] The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "What is Man?" [1906] - I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational. --Oscar Wilde (1854—1900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Picture of Dorian Gray_, ch. 2 [1891] MANCHESTER . . see: "PLACES" for related links [On Manchester, England:] A sort of black smoke covers the city. The sun seen through it is a disc without rays. Under this half-daylight 300,000 human beings are ceaselessly at work ... From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish; here civilization makes its miracles, and civilized man is turned back almost into a savage. --Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859) French historian and politician. _Journeys to England and Ireland_ [1835] I would like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. Attributed in John P. Holms & Karin Baji (comps.) _Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend_ [1998]. MANNERS . . see: "CIVILITY" for related links Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. --Samuel Adams (1722—1803) American revolutionary leader. Essay published in The Advertiser [1748] and later reprinted in _The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams_, Volume 1, by William Vincent Wells; Little, Brown, and Company; Boston [1865]. Another result of the [1920s social] revolution was that manners became not merely different, but — for a few years — unmannerly. It was no mere coincidence that during this decade hostesses — even at small parties — found that their guests couldn't be bothered to speak to them on arrival or departure; that "gate-crashing" at dances became an accepted practice; that thousands of men and women made a point of not getting to dinners within half an hour of the appointed time lest they seem insufficiently blase'; that house parties of flappers and their wide-trousered swains left burning cigarettes on the mahogany tables, scattered ashes light-heartedly on the rugs, took the porch cushions out in the boats and left them there to be rained on, without apology; or that men and women who had had — as the old phrase went — "advantages" and considered themselves highly civilized, absorbed a few cocktails and straightway turned a dinner party into a boisterous rout, forgetting that a general roughhouse was not precisely the sign of a return to the Greek idea of the good life. The old bars were down, no new ones had been built, and meanwhile the pigs were in the pasture. Some day, perhaps, the ten years which followed the war may aptly be known as the Decade of Bad Manners. --Frederick Lewis Allen (1890—1954) American author and editor. _Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties_ [1931] A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. --Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist. _Dave Barry Turns 50_ [1998] [When robbing a stagecoach:] Please throw down your strongbox. --Charles E. Bolton [Charles Earl Bolles, aka Black Bart] (1829—1917?) American outlaw. Quoted in Jay Robert Nash _Encyclopedia of World Crime ..._ [1990]. Always behave as if nothing had happened no matter what has happened. --Arnold Bennett (1867—1931) English novelist. _Denry the Audacious_, ch. X "His Infamy" [1911] If we neglect these studies [of grammar], our language will become corrupted and barbarous, and ... our manners will become rude, our morals vitiated, and we shall sink into a savage state. --Jason Chamberlain Professor of the Learned Languages, in Inaugural Address at the University of Vermont [1 August 1811]. - Acquire an easiness and versatility of manners, as well as of mind; and, like the chameleon, take the hue of the company you are with. --Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773) British writer and politician. Letter to his son [11 January 1750]. A man's good-breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners. --Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773) British writer and politician. Quoted in S. Austin Allibone _Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay_, p. 450 [1876]. - Always suspect a man who affects great softness of manner, an unruffled evenness of temper, and an enunciation studied, slow, and deliberate. These things are all unnatural, and bespeak a degree of mental discipline into which he that has no purposes of craft or design to answer, can not submit to drill himself. The most successful knaves are usually of this description, as smooth as razors dipped in oil, and as sharp. They affect the innocence of the dove, which they have not, in order to hide the cunning of the serpent, which they have. --C.C. Colton (1780—1832) English clergyman and writer. _Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, CXXIV [1821 ed.] ^ Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933), 30th President of the United States [1923-29]. An overnight guest at the White House was mystified when he saw the President at breakfast pouring some milk from his cup into a saucer. Fearful of committing some breach of etiquette, the guest imitated him. Coolidge said nothing but smiled slightly. Bending down, he placed the saucer on the floor for the cat, which had been waiting quietly under the table. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ A moral, sensible, and well-bred man, Will not affront me, and no other can. --William Cowper (1731—1800) English poet and hymnodist. _Conversation_, l. 193 If you don't go to other men's funerals ... they won't go to yours. --Clarence Day (1874—1935) American author. _Life With Father_ [1935] "Father Plans to Get Out" Propriety of manners and consideration for others are the two main characteristics of a gentleman. --attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 1874-80]. A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. _Proverbs in Prose_ [1819] To sleep when others speak, to sit when others stand, to walk on when others stay, to speak when one should hold his peace, or hear others, are all things of ill manners. --Francis Hawkins (1628—1681) English Jesuit. _Youth's Behaviour_ [1663] If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect. --William Hazlitt (1778—1830) English essayist. _Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims_, CLXXXVIII [2nd ed., 1837] Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best. --Robert A(nson) Heinlein (1907—1988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] "Notebooks of Lazarus Long" Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch. --Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) American statesman and president [1801—1809]. Letter to Spencer Roane [1821]. A man of sense knows when he pleases or is tiresome; he goes away the very minute before it might have been thought he stayed too long. --Jean de La Bruyère (1645—1696) French essayist and moralist. "Of Society and of Conversation" in _The Characters_ [1688]. In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882) American poet. _Kavanagh: A Tale_ [1849] For as laws are necessary that good manners may be preserved, so there is need of good manners that laws may be maintained. --Niccolò Machiavelli (1469—1527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. _The Discourses_, I, 18 [1517] It is well to think well; it is divine to act well. --Horace Mann (1796—1859) American educator. In _Thoughts: Selected From the Writings of Horace Mann_ (ed. Mary Mann) [1872]. Remember this, — that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121—180) Roman emperor [161—180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_, IV, 32 Should you happen to notice that another person is extremely tall or overweight, eats too much or declines convivial drinks, has red hair or goes about in a wheelchair, ought to get married or ought not to be pregnant — see if you can refrain from bringing these astonishing observations to that person's attention. --Judith "Miss Manners" Martin (b. 1938) American newspaper columnist. Quoted in William Safire & Leonard Safir _Words of Wisdom: More Good Advice_ [1989]. A car is useless in New York, essential everywhere else. The same with good manners. --Mignon McLaughlin (1913—1983) American journalist and author. _The Second Neurotics Notebook_ [1966] On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners. --George Mikes (1912—1987) Hungarian-born British author. _How to Be an Alien_ [1946] Civility costs nothing, and buys everything. --Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [née Pierrepont] (1689—1762) English aristocrat and writer. Letter to Countess of Bute [30 May 1756]. (See Smiles, below.) There was a brave girl of Connecticut Who flagged the express with her pecticut. Which her elders defined, As presence of mind, But deplorable absence of ecticut. --Ogden Nash (1902—1971) American writer of humorous poetry. Quoted in "The Writer" [1935]. Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste and style mixed together so you don't need any of those things. Good manners have a number of distinctive qualities: First, they can be learned by rote. This is a good thing; otherwise most rich men's daughters could not be displayed in public. Secondly, manners do not vary from culture to culture or place to place. The same polite behavior that makes you a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of Kensington is equally appropriate among the Mud People of the fierce Orokaiva tribe of Papua New Guinea - if you have a gun. This is the advantage of Western-style manners. Citizens of westernized countries still have most of the guns. --P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American political satirist. _Modern Manners_ [1983] This is the final test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him. --William L. Phelps (1865—1943) American educator, journalist, and man of letters. Quoted in _The Law Society Journal_, vol. 10 (pub. by Law Society of Massachusetts) [1942]. 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 (1873—1960) American authority on social behavior. Attributed in Matthew Gara _Hey! let's talk it over!_ [1967]. They asked Lucman, the fabulist, 'From whom did you learn manners?' He answered: 'From the unmannerly.' --Sa'di [Muslih-uddin] (c. 1184—1291?) Iranian poet. _The Gulistan_ (Rose Garden) [1258] - On a cold winter's day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But soon they felt one another's quills and moved apart. When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again forced them apart. They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their discomforts until the found the distance from one another that provided both a maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain. In human beings, the emptiness and monotony of isolated self produces a need for society. This brings people together, but their many offensive qualities and intolerable faults drive them apart again. The optimum distance that they finally find and that permits them to coexist is embodied in politeness and good manners. Because of this distance between us, we can only partially satisfy our need for warmth, but at the same time, we are spared the stab of one another's quills. --Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860) German philosopher. Attributed in "Reader's Digest" [1986]. - What once were vices, are now the manners of the day. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. _Epistulae ad Lucilium_, xxxix, as quoted in William S. Walsh _The International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations_ [1908]. The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. --George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.] _The Philanderer_, act II [1893] Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing. --Samuel Smiles (1812—1904) Scottish author. _Character_ [1871] (See Montagu, above.) There are three things in speech that ought to be considered before some things are spoken — the manner, the place and the time. --Robert Southey (1774—1843) English poet. Attributed in S. Austin Allibone _Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay_ [1880 ed.]. The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known. For a man by nothing is so well betrayed, As by his manners. --Edmund Spenser (1552/53—1599) English poet. _The Faerie Queen_, bk. VI, canto III [1590—1596] Etiquette is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance. --Sir Richard Steele (1672—1729) Irish-born essayist and dramatist. Attributed in Edward Parsons Day _Day's Collacon: An Encyclopaedia Of Prose Quotations_, p. 241 [1884]. A child should always say what's true, And speak when he is spoken to; And behave mannerly at table, At least as far as he is able. --Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894) Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist. "Whole Duty of Children" in _A Child's Garden of Verses_ [1885]. The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion. --Jonathan Swift (1667—1745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. Attributed in _Encyclopaedia Perthensis_ [2nd ed., 1816]. The European continent swarms with your people. They are not all as polished as Chesterfield. I wish some of them spoke French a little better. I saw five of them at supper at Basle the other night with their knives down their throats. It was awful. --William Makepeace Thackeray (1811—1863) English novelist. Letter to an American friend [21 July 1853]. Laws are always unstable unless they are founded upon the manners of a nation; manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people. --Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859) French historian and politician. _Democracy in America_, bk. I, ch. XVI [1835] - The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table [among the Northern military officers], the voracious rapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured, the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from the contamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our dresses; the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till the whole blade seemed to enter into the mouth: and the still more frightful manner of cleaning the teeth afterward with a pocket knife, soon forced us to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels and majors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be anything rather than an hour of enjoyment. --Frances Trollope (1780—1863) English author [mother of Anthony Trollope]. _Domestic Manners of the Americans_ [1832] Let no one who wishes to receive agreeable impressions of American manners, commence their travels in a Mississippi steamboat. --Frances Trollope (1780—1863) English author [mother of Anthony Trollope]. _Domestic Manners of the Americans_ [1832] What a company, bon Dieu! I was drawing a picture for the girls of the opposite side of the table in the Alabama Steamer with every man with his knife down his throat. Yesterday on this boat (The Thomas Small) every woman had her knife down her's too. I vow every one. --Frances Trollope (1780—1863) English author [mother of Anthony Trollope]. _On The Mississippi_ [1856] - Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Notebooks_ [1935] Do not spit on the floor, or carpet, but in your handkerchief, nor cough rudely, nor grind your teeth together, nor puff, nor belch loudly. --In Charles Varle _Moral Encyclopaedia, or, Varlé's Self-Instructor, no. 3_ [1831]. Don't reserve your best behavior for special occasions. [...] You can't have two sets of manners, two social codes — one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people. --Lillian Eichler Watson _New Standard Book of Etiquette_, p. 4 [1953] The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones. --Wendell Wilkie (1892—1944) American lawyer and the Republican nominee for the 1940 presidential election (won by FDR). Attributed in _The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life_ [1950]. - Bad manners are the fault of the parent, not the child. --Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_, "Things Past" Hello; my name is Klaus, and I'll be your executioner tonight. --medieval axe-man to prisoner, in a "New Yorker" cartoon. A person never so beautifully shows his own strength, as when he respects another's weakness. --anon. ----- gaucherie [goh-shuh-REE], noun: 1. A socially awkward or tactless act. 2. Lack of tact; boorishness; awkwardness. punctilious (adj.) [pêngk-'ti-lee-ês] Strict about or attentive to details of proper conduct and conventional matters. Similar to "meticulous," but the two are not interchangeable. "Meticulous" means careful and precise about details. "Punctilious" adds the dimension of being careful and precise about the details of conventional conduct. MANUAL LABOR . . see: "WORK" for related links Put his shoulder to the wheel. --Robert Burton (1577—1640) English scholar, cleric, and author. _The Anatomy of Melacholy_, pt. II, sect. I [1621—1651] - Hard work will never kill you, 'Tis said all over town; Sweat is the only liquid In which you cannot drown. --anon. MAPS . . see: "TRAVEL" for related links Before a journey a map is an impersonal menu; afterwards, it is intimate as a diary. --Thurston Clarke (b. 1946) American writer and historian. _Equator_ [1988] MARATHONS . . see: "SPORTS" for related links A woman from Norway. A guy from Kenya. And 2000 losers. --Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954) American actor, writer, and comedian. Dialogue in "Seinfeld" [TV show]. MARCH . . see: "TIME" for related links It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold, when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. --Charles Dickens (1812—1870) English novelist. _Great Expectations_ [1860—1861] March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb. --John Fletcher (1579—1625) English Jacobean dramatist. "A Wife for a Month" [1624] Ah, March! we know thou art Kind-hearted, spite of ugly looks and threats, And, out of sight, art nursing April's violets! --Helen Hunt (1830—1885) American writer. _Verses_ [1870] "March" Soothsayer: Beware the ides (15th) of March ... Caesar: The ides of March are come. Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar; but not gone. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Julius Caesar_, I, ii [1599] Based on Suetonius _Julius Caesar_ [c. 120]. MARINES . . see: "WAR & PEACE" for related links And when he goes to heaven, To Saint Peter he will tell: Another Marine reporting, sir; I've served my time in hell! --Epitaph on grave of Pfc. Cameron of the U.S. Marine Corps, Guadalcanal [1942]. [Of the Marines at the battle of Iwo Jima:] Uncommon valor was a common virtue. --Chester William Nimitz (1885—1966) Commander in Chief of Pacific forces during World War II. CINCPOA Communiqué no. 300 [16 March 1945]. ]T]he Marine Corps does more to promote world peace than all the Ben & Jerry's ice cream ever made. --P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American political satirist. _Give War A Chance_ [1992] [When surrounded by the enemy during the Korean War:] They're on our right, they're on our left, they're in front of us, they're behind us; they can 't get away from us this time. --Lester Burwell "Chesty" Puller (1898—1971) The most decorated Marine in American history. Attributed in William A. Cohen _Wisdom of the Generals: From Adversity to Success_ [2001]. Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem. --Ronald Reagan (1911—2004) American President [1981-89]. [Attributed 1985 comment.] - From Berlin, Rome and Tokyo we have been described as a nation of weaklings — "playboys" — who would hire British soldiers, or Russian soldiers, or Chinese soldiers to do our fighting for us. Let them repeat that now! Let them tell that to General MacArthur and his men. Let them tell that to the sailors who today are hitting hard in the far waters of the Pacific. Let them tell that to the boys in the Flying Fortresses. Let them tell that to the Marines! --Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945) American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945]. Radio broadcast [23 February 1942]. - end page \| MACARTHUR (DOUGLAS) - MALICE \| MAN - MARINES \| MARRIAGE \| MARTYRS - MAUGHAM (WILLIAM SOMERSET) \| McCARTHY - MEANNESS \| MEDIA (THE) \| MEDICINE - MEMORIAL DAY \| MEMORIES - MEMORY \| MEN - MEN v. WOMEN \| MENTAL ILLNESS - MILK \| MIND (THE) - MINDING OWN BUSINESS \| MINNESOTA - MISERY \| MISFORTUNE - MISSOURI \| MISTAKES \| MISTAKEN IDENTITY - MODESTY \| MONEY \| MONROE - MOON \| MORAL ASSASINATION - MORALITY \| MORNING - MOUNTAINS \| MOVIE DIALOGUE - MUSHROOMS \| MUSIC - MYTHOLOGY \| \| H \| I - J \| K - L \| M \| N - O \| P - Q \| \| Return Home \| The Credits \| The Cast \| Act 1 \| Act 2 \| Act 3 \| The Reviews \|