Too little
Expecting accommodation
They should know what I mean.
Your familiar way of asking becomes everyone else’s responsibility.
Courtesy
You have rehearsed the question. Leave room for the answer.
A habitual disposition to show ordinary consideration without regard to advantage or rank.
Courtesy gives ordinary consideration a recognizable form. In an unfamiliar place, that may mean learning a greeting, making a request clearly, or allowing someone time to respond. Polished speech is optional. The point is to make room for another person’s dignity and circumstances.
Courtesy gives a more workable exchange
At the ticket counter, you find the sentence you rehearsed in your little phrasebook. The clerk begins to answer, but you are already searching for sentence two. Close the book for a moment and let the reply arrive. The conversation may turn out to have fewer lines than your rehearsal, and two people in it.
Finding the balance in Courtesy
An illustrative everyday situation
Pause a rehearsed request at a ticket counter so the clerk can answer.
A fitting response
Making an exchange possible
Hello. Could you help me with this ticket?
A clear request and room for an answer respect both participants.
Pursued too far
Performing perfect manners
I must complete my entire prepared speech.
Form takes over from the person and the practical exchange.
Good manners have to notice the person they are for.
When the situation changes
If speech is difficult or unavailable, use a suitable written message, communication aid or gesture. Courtesy is not measured by fluency, eye contact or a particular way of moving.
What Courtesy makes possible
A considerate request can reduce needless friction and let a brief exchange remain pleasant. It cannot guarantee a helpful answer, and it does not make a worker responsible for every problem a visitor encounters.
Courtesy in ordinary life
Visiting a sacred site
Read the particular site’s visitor and dress guidance before arriving. Prepare if you choose to enter, and ask about anything unclear. You can also choose not to enter; respectful interest does not require participation in a practice or service.
A crowded counter
Have the relevant detail ready, ask one clear question, and let the answer finish. Preparation serves the exchange rather than demonstrating expertise.
Nearby virtues, different work
Patience
Patience gives an exchange time; Courtesy shapes how you address the person during it.
Fairness
Fairness considers whose claims count; Courtesy expresses consideration without ranking people by status.
Courtesy and its counterfeits
Counterfeit: Decorative politeness
An elaborate “please” attached to an unreasonable demand can imitate Courtesy. Genuine Courtesy allows the answer to be no.
Counterfeit: Submission
Accepting degrading treatment to seem well mannered mistakes Courtesy for self-erasure. A clear refusal can remain considerate.
How to cultivate Courtesy
Learn one useful greeting or means of making a request.
Make the request short enough to answer.
Let courtesy survive a refusal or a misunderstanding.
Try it today
Courtesy does not require unwanted contact, humiliation or compliance. Communication differences do not establish a lack of consideration.
In an ordinary exchange, make one clear request using a form that works for you and the other person. Give them room to answer or decline.
While visiting an unfamiliar place
Let your manner make an exchange easier.
Questions worth returning to
Is my manner helping this exchange?
Would I address someone with less visible status as carefully?
Keep the practice proportionate
Courtesy does not require unwanted contact, humiliation or compliance. Communication differences do not establish a lack of consideration.
About these practices · DisclaimerQuotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
Where this people finds the secret of its pretty speeches, I cannot imagine; unless the secret should be no other than a sincere desire to please?
His question locates gracious speech in a wish to please. The visitor’s phrasebook works best when it serves consideration rather than performance.
HAIL, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it!
Yorick celebrates small courtesies as easing shared life. The useful gesture can be modest and brief.
All her barbed civilities came forth wrong end first.
Forster’s narrator gives politeness a sharp edge. The comic phrase distinguishes considerate manner from socially polished hostility.
Be polite and obliging to all, and considerate towards every one's opinions, failings and prejudices.
In Twain’s account, advice to the young Jack emphasizes consideration for fellow passengers. Courtesy has work to do before agreement or intimacy.
It would give me great pleasure if you and Miss Vinrace would consent to be of the party.
Hewet’s invitation leaves participation with the guests. A considerate invitation offers company without presuming consent.
She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their brother’s manners there was something better than politeness—there was good-humour and kindness.
Austen distinguishes Bingley’s actual kindness from outward politeness. Considerate treatment has more substance than a polished formula.
But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, is excellent; for it is only by trying to understand others that we can get our own hearts understood; and in matters of human feeling the clement judge is the most successful pleader.
Stevenson connects being understood with trying to understand. The traveler’s phrasebook serves an exchange between people rather than a flawless performance.
Continue exploring
Take these ideas into everyday life
Read freely, follow the fifteen-virtue program, or adapt this collection in My Virtues. A local outing can be enough.