Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.

Nerve gets the credit and manners get treated as decoration, yet both come from the same place: a willingness to put something ahead of your own comfort. Being courteous while tired, irritated or clearly in the right costs something real. Anybody can be pleasant when it is easy.

Notice where you let yourself be short with people because you have decided you have earned it. The tired waiter, the slow driver, the relative asking the same question again. Holding your manners in exactly those moments is not weakness, and it is the harder of the two disciplines more often than people admit.