Life & Wisdom Quote by Bryant H. McGill

McGill’s line lands like a calm rebuke in an era that treats rudeness as a personality and “authenticity” as a license. By pairing “appreciated” with “abhorred,” he builds a moral symmetry: manners aren’t decorative extras, they’re social infrastructure. The sentence works because it refuses the usual sentimental pitch about kindness; it frames etiquette as consequence. Do this and people lean in. Do the opposite and people recoil. Simple, almost mechanical, which is the point.

The subtext is that manners operate as a low-cost signal of respect in a high-friction world. You don’t need money, status, or even charisma to be considerate; you just need restraint and attention. That’s why “good manners” get “appreciated” in disproportion to their effort: they’re proof you can manage yourself. “Bad manners,” meanwhile, aren’t merely annoying; they’re read as disregard. They imply you think other people are obstacles, not participants.

There’s also a quiet critique of the cultural habit of treating politeness as fake. McGill argues that civility is not hypocrisy, it’s coordination. In crowded workplaces, comment sections, service interactions, and families running on fumes, manners become a kind of public health measure: small gestures that prevent small irritations from becoming lasting resentments.

The intent isn’t to scold so much as to remind: social life keeps score, even when we pretend it doesn’t. The real sting is that everyone notices, and almost nobody forgets.