Conduct books are a genre of books that attempt to educate the reader on social norms. As a genre, they began in the mid-to-late Middle Ages, although antecedents such as The Maxims of Ptahhotep (ca. 2350 BC) are among the earliest surviving works. Conduct books remained popular through the 18th century, although they gradually declined with the advent of the novel.
Famous quotes containing the words conduct and/or book:
“Here in England the welfare of the State depends on the conduct of our aristocracy.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists.... When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence.
Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.”
—Steven Soderbergh (b. 1963)