NeverLetMeDown

”Your manners make a lasting impression on people. They slow the extent of your regard for the rights and feelings of those around you.

Good manners are habits of thoughtfulness for others. They are natural to one who is considerate and, fortunately, can be cultivated by one who is not.

Graceful manners come of a knowledge of correct social forms. These forms are based on common sense and good taste and are easily learned.

Good manners must begin at home if they are to be at all natural outside. Therefore,  start this view of good manners by considering how thoughtful you are at home.

Do you allow older members to pass ahead of you?

Do you allow them comfortable chairs?

Do you introduce your friends to them?

Do you rise when an elderly person who is standing addresses you?

Are you especially patient with older person who are less literate?

Are you careful no to upset anyone, old or young, by ridicule or teasing?

Are you a good listener? Or do you interrupt and contradict?

Do you avoid calling from room to room, banging doors, clattering things, and using the radio to the annoyance of others?

Do you ask permission to use another’s property?

Do you respect the privacy of another person’s room?

Are you careful not to disturb one who is reading or writing or one who wants to be left alone?

Do you avoid prying into the mails and messages and private affairs of others?

When you happen upon intimate information, do you refrain from using it to embarrass others?

Do you leave things clean and orderly for the others, in the bathrom for instance?

Are you careful not to keep others waiting, as for meals or other similar appointments?

When you fail to understand what someone says, do you let the person know by using some such gracious words as, ‘I’m sorry but I failed to hear.’

It is a happy custom to use all your gracious expressions at home. ‘Good morning,’ ‘Good night,’ ‘Thank you,’ ‘Let me do that for you,’ ‘You were kind to do that for me,’ ‘Your dress is becoming,’ and to add to ‘Yes or No’ the name of the person whom you address”

-from Your Life in the Making, J. E. Morgan