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.
Interpretation
Good manners protect you while avoiding unnecessary conflict. Responding rudely only perpetuates negativity.
This quote emphasizes the importance of etiquette and civility, suggesting that maintaining good manners does not make one vulnerable, contrary to what some might believe. Instead of responding to rudeness with more rudeness, which only amplifies negativity, it's better to uphold polite behavior to foster a more respectful environment.
In practice
Using this quote during a workshop on communication skills.
The rationale that etiquette should be eschewed because it fosters inequality does not ring true in a society that openly admits to a feverish interest in the comparative status-conveying qualities of sneakers. Manners are available to all, for free.
One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.
Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to other lives and other tempers, as woman's destiny requires, have for the most part a mania for making everything about them bend to them.
When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.
He was slumped in the back, gazing out of the window, as though his parents were two people who had picked him up hitchhiking, connected to him merely by chance and proximity.
There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.
Trust is that rare and priceless treasure that wins us the affection of our heavenly Father.
I think there's a lot of things that occur within the African-American community, that we would prefer to stay within the African-American community - that we get a little nervous when you start having scenes or dialogue that we know is going to be viewed and heard on a national or global scale.
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