C is for COURTESY

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

Francis Bacon



The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.

Christian Nestell Bovee

Nothing costs less nor is cheaper than compliments of civility.

Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)



Great talents, such as honor, virtue, learning, and parts, are above the generality of the world, who neither possess them themselves nor judge of them rightly in others; but all people are judges of the lesser talents, such as civility, affability, and an obliging, agreeable address and manner, because they feel the good effects of them, as making society easy and pleasing.

4th Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope



A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.

William Cowper, Conversation (l. 193)





The whole of heraldry and of chivalry is in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your name with all the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add.

Ralph Waldo Emerson



We must be courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.

Ralph Waldo Emerson



Life is not so short that there is always time enough for courtesy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Social Aims



How sweet and gracious, even in common speech,
Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy!
Wholesome as air and genial as the light,
Welcome in every clime as breath of flowers,
It transmutes aliens into trusting friends,
And gives its over passport round the globe.

James Thomas Fields, Courtesy



Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that they carry our boats, or winds that they be favoring and fill our sails, or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us; but they know it not.

Ben Jonson



When my friends are blind of one eye, I look at them in profile.

Joseph Joubert







Civility is a desire to receive civility, and to be accounted well-bred.

Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld



Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lead on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we way derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne



Courtesy, like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in the very beginning of our acquaintance and familiarity; and, consequently, that which first opens the door for us to better ourselves by the example of others, if there be anything in the society worth notice.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne