QuoteProject
Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.
Emily Post
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Etiquette emphasizes maintaining a positive assumption about others' intentions until proven otherwise.

This quote by Emily Post highlights the importance of giving people the benefit of the doubt in social interactions. It suggests that good manners involve presuming goodwill and positive intentions from others until there is evidence to suggest otherwise, thereby fostering a more respectful and harmonious environment in our relationships.

Themes

EtiquetteGoodwillRelationshipsAssumptionSocialManners

In practice

Example use cases

In a professional setting, when someone is late to a meeting, you might say, 'Let's presume there was a good reason for their delay.'

More from Emily Post

If you are hurt, whether in mind or body, don't nurse your bruises. Get up, and light-heartedly, courageously, good-temperedly, get ready for the next encounter.
Emily PostRead
To make a pleasant and friendly impression is not alone good manners, but equally good business.
Emily PostRead
An overdose of praise is like 10 lumps of sugar in coffee; only a very few people can swallow it.
Emily PostRead
Any child can be taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are acquired is a Herculean task.
Emily PostRead
Courtesy demands that you, when you are a guest, shall show neither annoyance nor disappointment--no matter what happens.
Emily PostRead
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 PostRead

Similar quotes

I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.
Patti SmithRead
A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them - they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life." "I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.
Jane AustenRead
We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
I'm nobody's daughter now. I'm through with that.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Compassion is the basis of all truthful relationship: it means being present with love-for ourselves and for all life, including animals, fish, birds, and trees. Compassion is bringing our deepest truth into our actions, no matter how much the world seems to resist, because that is ultimately what we have to give this world and one another.
Ram DassRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.