What it means to me

" Good menners will open doors that the best education cannot."

Clarence Thomas

To me, it means that no matter how smart you are, there are many things in life that you cannot accomplish without good manners. For example, if you want to be a boss of a very successful company, you not only need to be well educated, you also have to be respected and well-like by your collegues and peers. To achieve that, you would need to be well mannered, courteous and helpful. If you are well educated, but not well mannered, you will neither be well liked nor respected by others, thus causing them to loose faith in you being the boss. To me, good education is like the soup, and good manners is like all the ingredients added to it to make it perfect. So, if you want to have opportunities far beyond what is given, you need to be both well educated and well mannered.