Walter Damrosch married the daughter of James Blaine . . . Ever since they met many years ago . . . the Damrosches have led a conspicuously happy life.

The secret?

‘Next to care in choosing a partner,’ says Mrs. Damrosch, ‘I should place courtesy after marriage.  If young wives would only be as courteous to their husbands as to strangers!

. . . Rudeness is the cancer that devours love.  Everyone knows this, yet it’s notorious that we are more polite to strangers than we are to our own relatives.

. . . We wouldn’t dream of opening our friend’s mail without permission, or prying into their personal secrets.  And it’s only the members of our own family, those who are nearest and dearest to us, that we dare insult for their trivial faults.

‘Courtesy,’ says Henry Clay Risner, ‘is that quality of heart that overlooks the broken gate and calls attention to the flowers in the yard beyond the gate.’

Courtesy is just as important to marriage as oil is to your motor.

Dale Carnegie                                                                                                                           How to Win Friends and Influence People