In 1862, under the heavy burden of leading a divided nation through the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, gathered his cabinet to discuss his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation—the executive order that would make 3.5 million American slaves free people. ...

Wed 3/20/2024 8:09 AM Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.” Of course, it is a laughable suggestion that man invented laughter; but Nietzsche’s...

Wed 3/20/2024 7:10 AM Victor Hugo once said: “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.”  Well, today is the first day of spring.  So, this week, I’m going to see if I can make you laugh...

The rules of etiquette are not always used for the good.  There is a long history of the aristocratic use of the rules of civilized conduct to exclude and ostracize those from a lower social position.  While anyone can learn...

Oscar Wilde famously said: “The world was my oyster, but I used the wrong fork.”  He wasn’t really talking about manners, per se, but his expression still reflects something both peculiar and yet important about the rules of etiquette. What on...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said that “[a] man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.”  How we conduct ourselves in the company of others reveals a great deal about the kind of person that we are.  They...

Mark Twain once wrote that “Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater.”  One of the unique things about manners is that although they are a sort of “rules,” they are, in the end, only self-imposed.  They are a...

Sometimes it seems as though good manners have gotten a bad rap these days.  That the vulgar and unrefined is celebrated far more than the decent and polite.  Whether in business and politics or show business and the arts, the...