Manners are the happy way of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love --now repeated and hardened into usage. They form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned.
Source: The Conduct of Life, Beauty, 1860.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, (May 25 1803-1882), US philosopher, poet, essayist; He was the main spokesman of his time for moral optimism and belief in the individual: Self-Reliance, 1844.