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Pleasantries Quotes

Browse 25 quotes about Pleasantries.

Pleasantries Quotes

“You asked me how I was doing, another social pleasantry. No one wants an honest answer to that one.”

Honesty Lies Socializing Small Talk Pleasantries Social Lies

Book:Old Babes in the Wood: Stories

Source: Old Babes in the Wood: Stories

“My soul never thinks of beginning to wake up for other people till lunch-time, and never does so completely till it has been taken out of doors and aired in the sunshine.”

Soul Company Bed Sunshine Breakfast Waking Pleasantries

Book:Elizabeth and Her German Garden

Source: Elizabeth and Her German Garden

“I sort of thought that maybe people had to talk that way, sort of saying the same things over and over because that way they can get along together without thinking." She stopped and thought. Why I was so worried,” she said, “was because if people didn't say those damn things over and over, then they wouldn't talk to each other at all.”

Conversation Banality Small Talk Pleasantries Banalities Mrs Anderson Talk About The Weather

Book:Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories

Source: Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories

“Tribute to the dead is meaningless. Corpses are 3D – dead, deaf and dumb. Only the living can appreciate their tributes. If only we tell the living the sweet things we tell their corpses, some would have lived longer or happier. If you have swallowed pleasantries to your beloved ones, start vomiting them right away to avoid food poisoning or constipation. When do you prefer your tribute, dead or alive?”

Death Tribute Pleasantries Vomit Words

Book:Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

Source: Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

“If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries.”

Ifs Political Used Social Groups Minutes Security Solve Rhetoric Social Security Pleasantries Political Rhetoric

Author:Alan Greenspan

“The naturalist is a civilized hunter. He goes alone into the field or woodland and closes his mind to everything but that time and place, so that life around him presses in on all the senses and small details grow in significance. He begins the scanning search for which cognition was engineered. His mind becomes unfocused, it focuses on everything, no longer directed toward any ordinary task or social pleasantry.”

Mind Social Grows Fields Ordinary Tasks Presses Details Senses Significance Civilized Hunters Cognition Naturalist Woodland Small Details Scanning Pleasantries

Author:E. O. Wilson

“The powerful hold in deep remembrance an ill-timed pleasantry. [Lat., Facetiarum apud praepotentes in longum memoria est.]”

Powerful Ill Remembrance Pleasantries

Author:Tacitus

“A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.”

Nature Flower Careful Instance Observation Irony Superb Toads Pleasantries

Author:Honore de Balzac

“The archiepiscopal throne of Macedonius, which had been polluted with so much Christian blood, was successively filled by Eudoxus and Damophilus. Their diocese enjoyed a free importation of vice and error from every province of the empire; the eager pursuit of religious controversy afforded a new occupation to the busy idleness of the metropolis: and we may credit the assertion of an intelligent observer, who describes, with some pleasantry, the effects of their loquacious zeal.”

Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)

“As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unaquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood--a circumstance at all times unpleasant.”

Ifs Circumstances Opposites Tables All Time Manners Gentleman Kicks Misunderstood Etiquette Liable Dining Pleasantries

Book:The Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll

Source: The Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll

“I always put these pert jackanapeses out of countenance by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries; and by saying Well, and so?--as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon.”

Ifs Should Wells Stills Done Laughing Jokes Resources Wit Graves Countenance Pleasantries

Author:Lord Chesterfield

“The fairest blossoms of pleasantry thrive best where the sun is not strong enough to scorch, nor the soil rank enough to corrupt.”

Enough Strong Sun Wit Soil Thrive Strong Enough Not Strong Not Strong Enough Pleasantries

Author:Roger L'Estrange

“Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them.”

Philosophy Purpose Views Subjects Serious Regard Point Of View Pleasantries

Book:Delphi Collected Works of Voltaire (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of Voltaire (Illustrated)

“All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also.”

Should Wells Might Serious Brevity Pleasantries

Book:A philosophical dictionary, from the Fr. [by J.G. Gurton].

Source: A philosophical dictionary, from the Fr. [by J.G. Gurton].

“In one sense what may pass between the pope and myself may be trivialities. In another sense the fact of talking trivialities is itself a portent of great significance. But the pleasantries which we exchange may, as one church leader said, be pleasantries about profundities.”

May Said Facts Church Talking Leader Significance Pope Profundity Triviality Church Leaders Portents Pleasantries

Author:Geoffrey Fisher

“Pleasantries are low entropy, biased so far that they stop being an earnest inquiry and become ritual. Ritual has its virtues, of course, and I don't quibble with them in the slightest. But if we really want to start fathoming someone, we need to get them speaking in sentences we can't finish.”

Ifs Want Needs Courses Virtue Lows Sentences Ritual Inquiry Earnest Biased Entropy Pleasantries

Author:Brian Christian

“In a world where your interactions with humans are solely about rating one to five, two things happen: One is all humanity is lost in the name of fake pleasantries and also there's no nuance to that system. There's no room for complex interactions that are rich and meaningful.”

World Humans Two Happens Humanity Names Lost Rooms Rich Five Complexes Meaningful Things Happen Fake Two Things Interaction Rating Nuance Pleasantries

Author:Michael Schur

“I wanted to wear the most impenetrable suit of armour ever known to mankind. 'Hello, Mr. Rotten...' You can't say anything about me. You can't put me down in any way shape or form - I'm rotten to the core... you know, what's left for you? Pleasantries? I suppose the worst insult you could sling my way is 'Oh, he's really nice, him.'”

Knows Way Wanted Form Left Known Nice Worst Mankind Shapes Core Suits My Way Insult Say Anything Hello Rotten Really Nice Armour Insults You Pleasantries

Author:John Lydon

“Men and women walked casually about as they did on the main floor, every now and then stopping one another, exchanging pleasantries or scraps of relevantly irrelevant information. Gossip.”

Men Information Men And Women Gossip Now And Then Stopping Irrelevant Scrap Exchanging Pleasantries Bourne Identity

Book:The Jason Bourne Series 3-Book Bundle: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum

Source: The Jason Bourne Series 3-Book Bundle: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum

“Although I may express myself with some degree of pleasantry the purport of my words is entirely serious.”

Serious Degrees Pleasantries

Author:Robert Louis Stevenson

“All you'll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. Only someone who loves you will criticize you.”

Women Love You Stranger Surface Indifference Memorable Criticize Pleasantries

Author:Judith Crist

“Everyone’s default state is this pleasantry state. My goal in the show is to undercut that as quickly as possible. If you really do let it sit, it’s sometimes amazing what comes out of people.”

People Ifs Sometimes States Shows Goal Default Undercut Pleasantries

Author:Nathan Fielder

“For my own part I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed: and that a good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.”

Thinking Should May My Own Conversation Species Wit Innocent Innocence Lively Pun Pleasantries

Book:The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolatory correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published: the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great-Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished

Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolatory correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published: the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great-Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished

“It is one of the sublime provincialities of New York that its inhabitants lap up trivial gossip about essential nobodies they've never set eyes on, while continuing to boast that they could live somewhere for twenty years without so much as exchanging pleasantries with their neighbors across the hall.”

Years Eye New York Essentials Twenties Neighbor Halls Gossip Continuing Sublime Boast Lap Exchanging Pleasantries

Author:Louis Kronenberger

“New Zealanders have conventions and pleasantries, but we are direct. We are encouraged to be transparent with our behavior and not to employ passive aggression.”

Behavior Direct Conventions Aggression Passive Transparent Pleasantries

Author:Daniel Gillies