A Complete Collection of genteel and ingenious Conversation, according to the most polite mode and method now used at Court, and in the best Companies of England, commonly known as A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation is a book by Jonathan Swift offering an ironic and satirical commentary on the perceived banality of conversation among the upper classes in early-eighteenth century Great Britain written in the form of a reference guide for those lacking in conversational skill. It was completed in 1731, but may have been conceived of as early as 1704. One of Swift's last works, it was written in between bouts of vertigo and was not presented for publication until 1738.
Famous quotes containing the words complete, collection, genteel, ingenious and/or conversation:
“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.... He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Psychobabble is ... a set of repetitive verbal formalities that kills off the very spontaneity, candor, and understanding it pretends to promote. It’s an idiom that reduces psychological insight to a collection of standardized observations, that provides a frozen lexicon to deal with an infinite variety of problems.”
—Richard Dean Rosen (b. 1949)
“Look at your [English] ladies of quality—are they not forever parting with their husbands—forfeiting their reputations—and is their life aught but dissipation? In common genteel life, indeed, you may now and then meet with very fine girls—who have politeness, sense and conversation—but these are few—and then look at your trademen’s daughters—what are they?—poor creatures indeed! all pertness, imitation and folly.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Mr. [Christopher] Smart the poet was here yesterday.... This ingenious writer is one of the most unfortunate of men—he has been twice confined in a mad house.... How great a pity so clever, so ingenious a man should be reduced to such shocking circumstances. He is extremely grave, and has still great wildness in his manner, looks and voice—’tis impossible to see him and to think of his works, without feeling the utmost pity and concern for him.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)