When in Rome do as the Romans do

If you are away from home, adapt yourself to your surroundings and to the local customs. Don’t expect the people there to alter their way of life just to please you. Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son on October 2nd, 1747:

‘Good-breeding, as it is called, is different in almost every country, and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good-breeding of the place he is at.’