Best Niceties Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory

“The competent leader of men cares little for the niceties of other peoples' characters: he cares much--everything--for the exterior uses to which they may be put.... These are men to be moved. How should he move them? He supplies the power; others simply the materials on which that power operates.”

Men Should May Littles Character Use Care Moving Political Leader Materials Moved Competent Supplies Political Power Exterior Niceties

Author:Woodrow Wilson

“Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity. If a man should consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, he would starve.”

Ifs Men Should Action Pieces Activity Intellectual Bread Throat Passages Tasting Niceties

Book:Essays and Lectures

Source: Essays and Lectures

“The novelist, unlike many of his colleagues, makes up a number of word-masses roughly describing himself (roughly: niceties shallcome later), gives them names and sex, assigns them plausible gestures, and causes them to speak by the use of inverted commas, and perhaps to behave consistently.”

Giving Character Use Literature Names Speak Sex Causes Numbers Mass Novelists Behave Gestures Consistently Colleagues Describing Plausible Inverted Niceties

Author:E. M. Forster

“Good taste rejects excessive nicety.”

Taste Rejects Good Taste Niceties

Author:Francois Fenelon

“To me this technical acceptation seems not applicable here, where we have to deal with the simplest moral precepts, and not with psychological niceties of Buddhist philosophy.”

Philosophy Seems Deals Moral Psychological Buddhist Simplest Niceties Buddhist Philosophy

Book:The Dhammapada and Sutta-Nipata

Source: The Dhammapada and Sutta-Nipata

“The niceties of existence were not a matter of concern, yet everything around was closed down most of the time. If you lived in a middle-class community in Chicago, children and adults came daily to the door saying, 'We are starving, how about a potato?' I speak from poignant memory.”

Ifs Children Matter Speak Community Memories Existence Class Doors Middle Adults Concern Middle Class Chicago Potatoes Starving Poignant Niceties

Author:Paul Samuelson

“Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity.”

Form Certain Evil Slavery Complexity Covered Segregation Niceties Covered Up Racial Segregation

Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.

“When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

“A Heart So White is simply one of the best novels I know. I'm also thrilled by Javier Marías sentences, by how elegant they are while also being so permissive in relation to the niceties of grammar and so open to the prospect of surprise. He's a genius.”

Knows Heart White Novel Genius Relation Surprise Sentences Mars Elegant Grammar Niceties

Author:Garth Greenwell

“Cities should function more like ecosystems, or even metabolisms. When we build, we should be thinking about how we can integrate into the ecosystems around us, but without sacrificing all the niceties of civilization like good restaurants, concert halls, and high-speed Internet access. I'm saying that partly tongue-in-cheek, but I'm also deadly serious. The future of technology is sustainable ecology.”

“You'd much rather act with a pal, someone you know really well. That way, you can cut all the niceties and go right to insulting each other.”

Knows Way Wells Cutting Insulting Pals Niceties

Author:William H. Macy

“Twenty years ago, when you bumped into someone and asked how they were, they would say, 'Mustn't grumble' or 'Getting by': now they feel obliged to say 'Just great!'. In both cases, the reply is just a social nicety, but the framework has changed, it's as if it's become a social duty to express happiness.”

Ifs Feels Years Social Cases Changed Duty Years Ago Twenties Obliged Framework Niceties

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”

Firsts Business Strange Sight Obvious Analysis Commodity Metaphysical Corny Theological Strange Things Subtlety Niceties Trivial Things

Book:Marx Selections

Source: Marx Selections

“It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.”

Giving Play Hands Differences Fate Philosophical Cards Gambling Niceties

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“During the nineteenth century, the rapid emergence and proliferation of new manufacturing methods and building technologies led to the establishment of polytechnic schools that concentrated on the practicalities of engineering and construction rather than the niceties of stylistic correctness or adherence to established precedent.”

School Technology Century Building Method Construction Establishment Engineering Rapids Manufacturing Nineteenth Century Correctness Emergence Precedent Proliferation Practicality Adherence Niceties

Author:Martin Filler

“There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal.”

Character Natural Equal Perception Discernment Quickness Penetration Niceties

Book:Persuasion - Jane Austen

Source: Persuasion - Jane Austen

“Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self when one does not lack wit and is familiar with all the niceties of language. Language is a prostitute queen who descends and rises to all roles. Disguises herself, arrays herself in fine apparel, hides her head and effaces herself; an advocate who has an answer for everything, who has always foreseen everything, and who assumes a thousand forms in order to be right. The most honorable of men is he who thinks best and acts best, but the most powerful is he who is best able to talk and write”

Source: Les ëuvres Choisies de George Sand. The Selected Works of George Sand

“Those who live alone slide into the habit of vertical eating: why bother with the niceties when there's no one to share or censure? But laxity in one area may lead to derangement in all.”

May Share Habit Eating Areas Bother Slides Censure Vertical Why Bother Niceties

Book:The Blind Assassin: A Novel

Source: The Blind Assassin: A Novel

“It's obsequious little nicety-nice girls like me who allow assholes to run the world: Miss Harlot O'Harlots, billionaire phony tree huggers, hypocrite drug-snorting, weed-puffing peace activists who fund the mass-murdering drug cartels and perpetuate crushing poverty in dirt-poor banana republics. It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities.”

“We think sometimes we're only drawn to the good, but we're actually drawn to the authentic. We like people who are real more than those who hide their true selves under layers of artificial niceties”

People Thinking Real Self Sometimes Authenticity Hiding Artificial Layers True Self Psychiatrist Fake People Nice People Niceties

Book:Life Lessons: How Our Mortality Can Teach Us About Life And Living

Source: Life Lessons: How Our Mortality Can Teach Us About Life And Living

“When putting words together is good to do it with nicety and caution, your elegance and talent will be evident if by putting ordinary words together you create a new voice.”

Ifs Together Voice Talent Ordinary Latin Evident Caution Elegance Niceties

Author:Horace

“I sent my ex-husband a bully card: You held hate in one heart and spoke niceties with the other, you laid warm hands upon me in public and wounded me in private, your noble face hid your filthy ways, and your sorrow was but laughter.”

Way Heart Hands Faces Hate Sorrow Husband Laughter Warm Noble Cards Spokes Bullying Wounded Bully Exes Filthy Niceties Ex Husband

Author:Jenny Jay

“A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.”

Love Seems Truth Simple Morning Response Simplicity Permanent Sensations Bizarre Implications Pretense Loaded Withdrawal Greetings Innuendo Niceties

Book:The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou

Source: The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou

“Such pretensions to nicety in experiments of this nature, are truly laughable! They will be telling us some day of the WEIGHT of the MOON, even to drams, scruples and grains-nay, to the very fraction of a grain!-I wish there were infallible experiments to ascertain the quantum of brains each man possesses, and every man's integrity and candour:-This is a desideratum in science which is most of all wanted.”

Men Wanted Science Wish Brain Integrity Moon Weight Every Man Experiments Grain Quantum Measurement Fractions Pretension Infallible Scruples Laughable Niceties Candour

Author:Robert Sutton Harrington

“Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or judicial research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings.”

Source: Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution

“The great people I've met always have time for the niceties.”

People Mets Great People Niceties

Author:Mercedes McCambridge

“I believe it is no wrong Observation, that Persons of Genius, and those who are most capable of Art, are always fond of Nature, as such are chiefly sensible, that all Art consists in the Imitation and Study of Nature. On the contrary, People of the common Level of Understanding are principally delighted with the Little Niceties and Fantastical Operations of Art, and constantly think that finest which is least Natural.”

Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: With Notes and Illustrations by Himself and Others. To which are Added, a New Life of the Author, an Estimate of His Poetical Character and Writings, and Occasional Remarks,

“A damnably readable, streamlined, yet deeply researched work. Skipping the ancestors and aftermath of conventional biography, Max gives us the man, his work, and his times-the niceties of which (so complicated, so exquisitely intertwined) Max articulates with, well, Wallace-like lucidity and wit. Above all this is the story of a touching young man who insisted on being something better than simply the smartest person in the room.”

Men Giving Wells Persons Stories Young Rooms He Man Complicated Wit Young Man Touching Ancestor Conventional Biographies Something Better Max Aftermath Intertwined Lucidity Niceties

Author:Blake Bailey

“Pride looks back upon its past deeds, and calculating with nicety what it has done, it commits itself to rest; whereas humility looks to that which is before, and discovering how much ground remains to be trodden, it is active and vigilant. Having gained one height, pride looks down with complacency on that which is beneath it; humility looks up to a higher and yet higher elevation. The one keeps us on this earth, which is congenial to its nature; the other directs our eye, and tends to lift us up to heaven.”

Looks Done Eye Earth Past Heaven Humility Pride Higher Remains Deeds Active Commit Lifts Height Look Up Discovering Complacency Vigilant Elevation Calculating Niceties

Author:James McCosh

“I remember being awed by it - the uniqueness and nicety of style - and I suspect I was a bit jealous because we were more or less of the same generation.”

Remember Fear Bits Generations Style Suspects Jealous Uniqueness Niceties

Author:George Plimpton

“If we serve Jesus then every act & thought has meaning. Acts of kindness aren't just niceties, they become acts of worship.”

Ifs Jesus Kindness Worship Acts Of Kindness Niceties

Author:John Wimber