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.
He that has not got a wife is not yet a complete man.
I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be
Not afraid of poverty and drabness and who is untouched by it, untouched by the drunkenness of her friends; (she) who judges, selects, discards people with severity, who knows, when she is telling her endless anecdotes, that they are ways of escape, keeping herself all the more secret behind that profuse talk.
I know I can't tell you what it's like to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity.
she knew she could help him best by being silent and by being near
Ah men, why do you want all this attention? I can write poems for myself, make love to a doorknob if absolutely necessary. What do you have to offer me I can't find otherwise except humiliation? Which I no longer need.
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