This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated. Civil wars strike deepest of all into the manners of the people. They vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert their natural taste and relish of equity and justice. By teaching us to consider our fellow-citizens in a hostile light, the whole body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very nature of affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity, whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage, when the communion of our country is dissolved.
Body | Charity | Danger | Equity | Justice | Light | Manners | Nature | Obligation | People | Politics | Rage | Taste | War | Danger |
Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals; they supply them or they totally destroy them.
Manners are the root, laws only the trunk and branches. Manners are the archetypes of laws. Manners are laws in their infancy; laws are manners fully grown - or, manners are children, which, when they grow up, become laws.
Differences are likely to lead to... the world's advancement, and add to the charms of social intercourse. Nothing leads to boredom more than uniformity of manners and thoughts.
Manners | Nothing | Uniformity | World |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is “faithful in that which is least” is dependable in all the world.
Amusements | Conscience | Discipline | Good | Manners | Nothing | Trifles | Work | World |
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then be fairly inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.
Age | Character | Education | Family | Manners | Men | Opinion | Society | Society |
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
Let a man use great reverence and manners to himself.
The basis of good manners is self-reliance.
Good | Manners | Self | Self-reliance |
All things are engaged in writing their history... Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of its fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens, the ground is all memoranda and signatures, and every object covered over with hints which speak to the intelligent.
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. The very hope of man. The thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization.
God | Heart | Hope | Man | Mankind | Manners | Mercy | Nations | Religion | Risk | God |
No manners are finer than even the most awkward manifestations of good will to others... Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.
Fine manners are like personal beauty, a letter of credit everywhere.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
While there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other.
To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit of independence too just to invade the rights of others, too proud to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices ourselves and too elevated not to look down upon them in others; to hold the union of the States as the basis of their peace and happiness; to support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people as equally incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system; to avoid the slightest interference with the right of conscience or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to preserve in their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf of private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press; to observe economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public resources by an honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics — that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe; to promote by authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture, to manufactures, and to external as well as internal commerce; to favor in like manner the advancement of science and the diffusion of information as the best aliment to true liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans which have been so meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and wretchedness of savage life to a participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state — as far as sentiments and intentions such as these can aid the fulfillment of my duty, they will be a resource which can not fail me.
Aid | Conscience | Decision | Discussion | Energy | Freedom | Fulfillment | Liberty | Life | Life | Manners | Means | Mind | Nations | Neutrality | Peace | People | Public | Respect | Right | Rights | Science | Spirit | Success | Surrender | Will | Respect |
A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
Manners |
Our manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities.—The price we pay for our civilization is the fine yet impassible differentiation of these.
Civilization | Life | Life | Manners | Price |