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.
People are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.
To say good-bye is to deny separation; it is to say Today we play at going our own ways, but we'll see each other tomorrow. Men invented farewells because they somehow knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral.
I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends.
Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had no heart any more, it had been broken; or not broken, it simply wasn't there any more. It had been scooped neatly out of me like the yolk from a hard-boiled egg, leaving the rest of me bloodless and congealed and hollow. I'm heartless, I thought. Therefore I'm homeless.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.