How to Be More Charming

Charm is an aspect of emotional intelligence

Mars Disarmed by Venus by Jacques-Louis David, 1824 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)

“Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.” — Albert Camus

What is charm?

In a certain sense, it has to do with grace and good humor, with comportment and instilling a feeling of warmth in others. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay on Manners, wrote:

“I have seen an individual whose manners, though wholly within the conventions of elegant society, were never learned there, but were original and commanding and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy, spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood; yet with the port of an emperor, if need be,—calm, serious, and fit to stand the gaze of millions.”