How important are good manners? Pretty important, I’d say. It all begins with self-image, to my way of thinking. How do you view yourself? If you have a pretty low opinion, it’s likely to come out in your language and actions. And others, watching, develop an opinion too.
Manners are putting yourself in another’s place and realizing how they might feel in a similar circumstance. Manners are an outward expression of how you view yourself and how you view others.
But, does a nation rise or fall because of mannerly or unmannerly citizens? Well, according to Samuel Adams, yes.
“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”
–Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775
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