Niceties quotes:

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The great people I've met always have time for the niceties. -- Mercedes McCambridge
It's the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards. -- Arthur Schopenhauer
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. -- Karl Marx
Good taste rejects excessive nicety. -- Francois Fenelon
Conscience is harder than our enemies, Knows more, accuses with more nicety. -- George Eliot
I was kind of a wild child. I wasn't taught the niceties of life. -- Barbra Streisand
Freedom of expression is no longer a political nicety, but a precondition for economic competitiveness. -- Alvin Toffler
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. -- Max Muller
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. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters. -- Iain Banks
There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure. -- Jonathan Swift
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Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout? -- Frank Herbert
For years, American officials visiting China marvelled at how Chinese leaders could push through infrastructure projects and sweeping legislative changes without the complications of opposition and the niceties of voting. -- Evan Osnos
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. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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. -- George Plimpton
In times of violence, personal predilections for niceties of colour and form seem irrelevant. All primitive expression (like the myths) reveals the constant awareness of powerful forces, the immediate presence of terror and fear. -- Adolph Gottlieb
Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use. -- Samuel Johnson
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. -- Maya Angelou
The rule for hospitality and Irish "help," is, to have the same dinner every day throughout the year. At last, Mrs. O'Shaughnessylearns to cook it to a nicety, the host learns to carve it, and the guests are well served. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We need to go to the niceties of approaching the U. N. and let them have a chance to take it over, but we should set some sort of date and begin to move out and leave it to whoever takes over. -- William Odom
My father always has been attractive because of his energy, warmth, charm, and talent for finding some connection with people from all cultures and walks of life. He rarely observed social formalities and niceties - something he has passed on to his boys. -- Ezekiel Emanuel
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. -- Martin Filler
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. -- E. M. Forster
A survival tale peels away the niceties and comforts of civilization. Suddenly, all the technology and education in the world means nothing. I think all of us wonder while reading a survival tale, 'What would I have done in this situation? Would I have made it?' -- Nathaniel Philbrick
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. -- Woodrow Wilson
The reactionary percentage of the electorate in these United States has been relatively constant since McCarthy's day; I'd estimate it as hovering around 30 percent. A minority, but one never all that enamored of the niceties of democracy - they see themselves as fighting for the survival of civilization, after all. -- Rick Perlstein
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. -- Paul Samuelson
There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life: 1) To produce them or 2) To plunder them. When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. -- Paul Valery
Revolutionaries who come to power by force of arms usually have great crimes in their background. Leaders who survive campaigns by great powers to destroy them do not survive because they observe the niceties of law. Subversives who shape world events by covert action and violence work in shadows and detest the light of day. -- Stephen Kinzer
A barber is by nature and inclination a sport. He can tell you at what exact hour the ball game is to begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with the better men that he has personally seen elsewhere, with the nicety of a professional. -- Stephen Leacock
If we serve Jesus then every act & thought has meaning. Acts of kindness aren't just niceties, they become acts of worship.. -- John Wimber
But people in masks were always assholes. It was a scientific law. Give someone anonymity and all social niceties break down. The Internet had proven that." -- Chelsea Cain
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. -- William H. Macy
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. -- Margaret Atwood
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 -- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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