Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.
Emily PostRead
In popular houses where visitors like to go again and again, there is always a happy combination of some attention on the part of the hostess and the perfect freedom of the guests to occupy their time as they choose.
Interpretation
A welcoming home balances hospitality with guest freedom.
This quote by Emily Post emphasizes the importance of creating a warm and inviting atmosphere in one's home that encourages visitors to return. It suggests that a successful gathering involves a harmonious interaction where the hostess provides attentive care while allowing guests the liberty to engage in their own activities, fostering a relaxed and enjoyable environment.
In practice
Use this quote during a speech about hosting successful gatherings.
Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.
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.
To make a pleasant and friendly impression is not alone good manners, but equally good business.
An overdose of praise is like 10 lumps of sugar in coffee; only a very few people can swallow it.
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.
Courtesy demands that you, when you are a guest, shall show neither annoyance nor disappointment--no matter what happens.
What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.
Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.
When women's sexuality is imagined to be passive or "dirty," it also means that men's sexuality is automatically positioned as aggressive and right-no matter what form it takes. And when one of the conditions of masculinity, a concept that is already so fragile in men's minds, is that men dissociate from women and prove their manliness through aggression, we're encouraging a culture of violence and sexuality that's detrimental to both men and women.
Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the sophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
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