The School of Life

The School of Life Guide to Modern Manners

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Modern life is full of minor but acute dilemmas: we get stuck at a gathering with someone unusually boring and wonder how to move on without causing offence; in the course of introducing one friend to another, we realize that we have forgotten one of the party’s names; we run into an ex while on an early date with a new partner; we spill red wine across a host’s sofa …

Such dilemmas might—at one level—seem desperately insignificant. But they actually belong to some of the largest and most serious themes in social existence: how can you pursue your own agenda for happiness while at the same time honoring the sensitivities and wishes of others; how can you convey goodwill with sincerity; how can you be kind without being supine or sentimental? The modern age often doesn’t seem to value manners, equating them with an old-fashioned stuffiness, instead we are advised to communicate our feelings and tell it the way it really is. But the result, in practice, is that we are often confused as to how to act around others and discharge our obligations to them.
This book puts good manners back at the center of our lives. It features twenty case-studies on common social dilemmas and our possible responses to them, contributing to a new and original philosophy of graceful conduct. Manners are far from negligible fancies; they stand at the day-to-day end of a hugely grand and dignified mission which The School of Life is committed to: the creation of a kinder and more considerate world.
This book is currently unavailable
80 printed pages
Original publication
2020
Publication year
2020
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  • Anna Makershared an impression4 years ago
    👍Worth reading

    Сложно читается, если ваш английский ниже среднего. Но довольно интересный сжатый справочник для современного человека. Без тяжелой философии и с реальными примерами.

  • Elizabeth S.shared an impression4 years ago
    🔮Hidden Depths

  • b5662303630shared an impression4 years ago
    👍Worth reading

Quotes

  • Elizabeth S.has quoted4 years ago
    We should remember – along the way – how little anyone ever thinks of us, in the best possible sense. People are for the most part gloriously indifferent to each other. They don’t spend their time plotting and hating; they simply don’t care. The person cracking a joke with a group of friends has not rerouted their evening to mock us. The attractive individual deep in conversation with a companion isn’t speculating about how isolated and ugly we are. Those are voices in our heads, not theirs.
  • Аня Дмитриеваhas quoted4 years ago
    This lack of faith in the humanity of others is a natural tendency of our minds. We go by external cues – and therefore come to assume that we are living among superior, metal-plated cyborgs rather than fragile, water-filled uncertain entities. We cannot believe that most of what we know of our own minds, especially the self-doubt, the anxiety and the sadness, exists in strangers too.
  • Алина Калининаhas quoted3 years ago
    there is simply nothing we can do other than fall silent and absorb our failure and the mismatch between who we are and the direction of the universe.

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