The Man Who Pleases and the Woman Who Charms, John A. Cone [best business books of all time .txt] 📗

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BENGEL.

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We are always clever with those who imagine we think as they do. To be shallow you must differ from people; to be profound you must agree with them.

BULWER.

* * * * *

If you want to spoil all that God gives you; if you want to be miserable yourself and a maker of misery to others, the way is easy enough. Only be selfish, and it is done at once.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

* * * * *

Language was given us that we might say pleasant things.

BOVEE.

* * * * *

"The specially social qualities are good nature, amiability, the desire to please, and the kindness of heart that avoids giving offence. A good natured person may frankly disagree with you, but he never offends."

* * * * *

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

EMERSON.

* * * * *

Pride of origin, whether high or low, springs from the same principle of human nature; one is but the positive, the other the negative pole of a single weakness.

LOWELL.

* * * * *

The best possible impression that you can make by your dress is to make no separate impression at all; but so to harmonize its material and shape with your personality, that it becomes tributary in the general effect, and so exclusively tributary that people cannot tell after seeing you what kind of clothes you wear.

G. HOLLAND.

* * * * *

Nothing is more dangerous than to paint men as they are when by chance they are not as handsome as they would wish to be.

EDMOND ABOUT.

* * * * *

"Borrow trouble if you have not enough already."

* * * * *

Refinement creates beauty everywhere.

HAZLITT.

* * * * *

"A lady may always judge of the estimation in which she is held by the conversation which is addressed to her."

* * * * *

Some people cannot drive to happiness with four horses, and others can reach the goal on foot.

THACKERAY.

* * * * *

"The clown who excites the multitudes to mirth is more a benefactor than the conqueror who drapes a thousand homes in mourning."

* * * * *

"Tact is the art of putting yourself in another's place, and being quick about it."

* * * * *

"It pays 100 per cent. to be polite to everyone, from the garbage gatherer to the governor."

* * * * *

"If you wish that your own merit should be recognized, recognize the merits of others."

* * * * *

"If you cannot be happy in one way, be happy in another; and this facility of disposition wants but little aid from philosophy, for health and good humor are almost the whole affair. Many run about after felicity, like an absent man hunting for his hat while it is on his head or in his hand. Such persons want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so."

* * * * *

"An Atchison woman, who three days ago was considered the most popular woman in town, has not one friend left; instead of sympathizing with her friends, as she has heretofore, she began telling them her troubles."

Atchison Globe.

* * * * *

It is the characteristic of folly to discern the faults of others and to forget one's own.

CICERO.

* * * * *

What is it to be a gentleman? It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner.

THACKERAY.

* * * * *

Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me. POPE.

* * * * *

"The Persians say of noisy, unreasonable talk: 'I hear the noise of the mill-stone, but I see no meal.'"

* * * * *

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.

ALGER.

* * * * *

It is much easier to be critical than correct.

BEACONSFIELD.

* * * * *

"'I am busy, Johnnie, and can't help it,' said the father, writing away when the little fellow hurt his finger. 'Yes, you could--you might have said oh!' sobbed Johnnie. There's a Johnnie in tears inside all of us upon occasions."

REV. W. C. GANNETT.

* * * * *

"You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you may prevent them from stopping to build their nests there."

* * * * *

In general society one should always avoid discussions upon two subjects--religion and politics. In a discussion upon either of these subjects you will find very little intellectual honesty, and it will almost invariably lead to irritating differences of opinion.

* * * * *

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others and exacts it in return from them.

HAZLITT.

* * * * *

"There is no real conflict between truth and politeness; what is imagined to be such is only the crude mistake of those who fail to discover their harmony. Politeness, taken in its best sense, is the graceful expression of respect, kind feeling, and good will."

* * * * *

"Beloved among women is she who, having warned a friend of the consequences to follow rash doings, will, when her prophecies have come true, withhold the triumphant: I told you so!"

Boston Journal.

* * * * *

"No one loses by politeness to, or by the trifling exercise of apparent pleasure in a caller. While I have no wish to counsel insincerity, there is a wide difference between that offensive veneer and the pure metal of consideration for the feelings of a stranger within one's gate."

 

LADY BELLAIR'S ADVICE TO GIRLS.

WHAT TO AVOID.

A loud, weak, affected, whining, harsh or shrill tone of voice. Extravagances in conversation--such phrases as "Awfully this," "Beastly that," "Loads of time," "Don't you know," "Hate" for "dislike," etc.

Sudden exclamations of annoyance, surprise and joy,--often dangerously approaching to "female swearing"--as "Bother!" "Gracious!" "How jolly!"

Yawning when listening to anyone.

Talking on family matters, even to bosom friends.

Attempting any vocal or instrumental piece of music that you cannot execute with ease.

Crossing your letters.

Making a sharp, short nod with the head, intended to do duty as a bow.

WHAT TO CULTIVATE.

An unaffected, low, distinct, silver-toned voice.

The art of pleasing those around you, and seeming pleased with them and all they may do for you.

The charm of making little sacrifices quite naturally, as if of no account to yourself.

The habit of making allowances for the opinions, feelings, or prejudices of others.

An erect carriage--that is, a sound body.

A good memory for faces, and facts connected with them--thus avoiding giving offence through not recognizing or bowing to people, or saying to them what had best been left unsaid.

The art of listening without impatience to prosy talkers, and smiling at the twice-told tale or joke.

* * * * *

"He who would see his sons and daughters thoroughly and truly gentle, must forbid selfishness of action, rudeness of speech, carelessness of forms, impoliteness of conduct from the first, and demand that in childhood and the nursery shall be laid the foundation of that good breeding which is as a jewel of price to the mature man and woman."

* * * * *

"Many persons consider that 'bad temper' is entirely voluntary on the part of the person who displays it. As a matter of fact it is often, to a very great extent, involuntary, and no one is more angry at it than the bad tempered person himself. Of course everyone, whether he is born with a bad temper or has acquired one from habit, or has been visited with one as the result of disease or injury, should at least try to control it. But his friends should also bear in mind that bad temper may be, and often is, an affliction to be sympathized with, not an offence to be punished."

Once A Week.

* * * * *

There are some people so given over to the pettiness of fault-picking, that if they should suddenly see the handwriting on the wall, they would disregard its awful warning in their eager haste to point out its defective penmanship.

BRANDER MATTHEWS.

* * * * *

"We are all dissatisfied. The only difference is that some of us sit down in the squalor of our dissatisfaction, while others make a ladder of it."

* * * * *

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe said, in speaking of Longfellow, that "his personal charm was in a delicateness of mind that was truly cosmopolitan; he had a vivid appreciation of what was beautiful and noble, and he represented the purest taste and the most perfect feeling." Was there ever given a finer definition of a gentleman?

* * * * *

"Set a watch over thy mouth, and keep the door of thy lips, for a tale-bearer is worse than a thief."

THE BIBLE.

* * * * *

"He submits to be seen through a microscope who suffers himself to be caught in a passion."

* * * * *

"It isn't what you wear in this life, gentlemen; it is how you wear it. It isn't so much what you do; it is how you do it. There are people who do tasteful things vulgarly, and vulgar things tastefully. Who was it that

'Kicked them downstairs with such very fine grace, They thought he was handing them up'?

"A sense of humor is one of the most precious gifts that can be vouchsafed to a human being. He is not necessarily a better man for having it, but he is a happier one. It renders him indifferent to good or bad fortune. It enables him to enjoy his own discomfiture. Blessed with this sense, he is never unduly elated or cast down. No one can ruffle his temper. No abuse disturbs his equanimity. Bores do not bore him. Humbugs do not humbug him. Solemn airs do not impose on him. Sentimental gush does not influence him. The follies of the moment have no hold on him."

Boston Journal.

* * * * *

There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be but to boil an egg. Manners are the happy way of doing things; each one the stroke of genius or of love--now repeated and hardened into usage. Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected--a police in citizen's clothes--but are awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least think of it.

EMERSON.

* * * * *

My experience of life makes me sure of one truth, which I do not try to explain; that the sweetest happiness we ever know, the very wine of human life, comes not from love, but from sacrifice--from the effort to make others happy. This is as true to me as that my flesh will burn if I touch red-hot metal.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

* * * * *

"A wise man will turn adverse criticism and malicious attacks to good account. He will consider carefully whether there is not in him some weakness or fault which, although he never discovered, was plain to the eye of his enemy. Many men profit more by the assaults of foes than by the kindness of friends."

* * * * *

"Politeness is like an air cushion: there may be nothing in it, but it eases our jolts wonderfully."

* * * * *

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies: they are ready enough to tell them. Good breeding never forgets that amour-propre is universal.

W. HOLMES.

* * * * *

Whatever our disbeliefs, most of us profoundly believe in goodness; and we incline to believe that a man who has practically learned the secret of noble living has somehow got near the truth of things.

GEO. S. MERRIAM.

* * * * *

"A man's bad temper sometimes does more toward spoiling a dinner than a woman's bad cooking."

* * * * *

Her voice was