Most respectful ways of ending a letter

[Woods]

What are the most respectful ways of ending a formal letter that you can think of? If you were to write to a politician, to a professional who is outstanding in their career or who you personally respect a lot? Something that goes beyond and far beyond the "Yours sincerely" - what would be the appropriate ways in English? In French there are so many ways.

[Linguaphile]

What are the most respectful ways of ending a formal letter that you can think of? If you were to write to a politician, to a professional who is outstanding in their career or who you personally respect a lot? Something that goes beyond and far beyond the "Yours sincerely" - what would be the appropriate ways in English? In French there are so many ways.

Very respectfully yours, or Most respectfully, or With deepest respect,

or even With deepest respect and admiration, or With sincere respect and admiration,

Or, if appropriate for the context:
With sincere appreciation, or With great appreciation, or In appreciation,

In the past, politicians and people writing to them used closings like this:
I have the honor to remain your humble and most obedient servant,
although (perhaps other than with royalty) that's much less common now and in most contexts would sound too obsequious today.

A more modern version of that might be
Faithfully yours, or the standard formulaic Yours truly,

Adding I remain or Always can add emphasis and a sense of sincerity to some of these closings:
I remain faithfully yours, or Always with deepest respect and admiration,
and so on.

Something to keep in mind is that in English the closing salutation is followed by a comma (not a period) and nearly always is a phrase that describes the letter-writer, whose signature follows the comma below the closing. For this reason, English letters don't tend to end with a complete sentence addressed to the addressee (such as Please accept my most respectful greetings.) Instead such a sentiment might be expressed as With my most respectful greetings, or a sentence might precede the closing:

Please accept my most respectful greetings.

Sincerely,
Linguaphile

in which the closing is just the word Sincerely, and Please accept my most respectful greetings. is part of the body of the letter. In this case the word Sincerely, is in fact a very respectful way to end the letter because it is saying that the expressions of respect stated in the body of the letter were meant with sincerity.

You can change it around and say almost anything as a closing salutation, with a comma after it, but formal letters in English tend to be quite formulaic, and using a very standard closing like Sincerely yours, is perfectly appropriate even in an extremely formal letter. The high level of respect that you want to convey can be expressed in the body of the letter followed by a standard, formulaic closing, which is what many English-speakers would do.

These are what come to mind. Due to previous discussions, I don't wish to get into a lengthy discussion with you about whether they convey or don't convey the level of respect you had in mind or the same level of respect as French closings. If they're not what you're looking for, maybe someone else will have other suggestions.

[Woods]

What are the most respectful ways of ending a formal letter that you can think of? If you were to write to a politician, to a professional who is outstanding in their career or who you personally respect a lot? Something that goes beyond and far beyond the "Yours sincerely" - what would be the appropriate ways in English? In French there are so many ways.

Very respectfully yours, or Most respectfully, or With deepest respect,

or even With deepest respect and admiration, or With sincere respect and admiration,

Or, if appropriate for the context:
With sincere appreciation, or With great appreciation, or In appreciation,

In the past, politicians and people writing to them used closings like this:
I have the honor to remain your humble and most obedient servant,
although (perhaps other than with royalty) that's much less common now and in most contexts would sound too obsequious today.

A more modern version of that might be
Faithfully yours, or the standard formulaic Yours truly,

Adding I remain or Always can add emphasis and a sense of sincerity to some of these closings:
I remain faithfully yours, or Always with deepest respect and admiration,
and so on.

Thank you very much!

I find it a lot harder to tell which one of those is appropriate in what situation than in French, I don't know why 😳

Something to keep in mind is that in English the closing salutation is followed by a comma (not a period) and nearly always is a phrase that describes the letter-writer, whose signature follows the comma below the closing. For this reason, English letters don't tend to end with a complete sentence addressed to the addressee (such as Please accept my most respectful greetings.) Instead such a sentiment might be expressed as With my most respectful greetings, or a sentence might precede the closing:

Please accept my most respectful greetings.

Sincerely,
Linguaphile

in which the closing is just the word Sincerely, and Please accept my most respectful greetings. is part of the body of the letter. In this case the word Sincerely, is in fact a very respectful way to end the letter because it is saying that the expressions of respect stated in the body of the letter were meant with sincerity.

You can change it around and say almost anything as a closing salutation, with a comma after it, but formal letters in English tend to be quite formulaic, and using a very standard closing like Sincerely yours, is perfectly appropriate even in an extremely formal letter. The high level of respect that you want to convey can be expressed in the body of the letter followed by a standard, formulaic closing, which is what many English-speakers would do.

I get the idea that the expressions of respect are rather placed in the sentences preceding the closing phrase "yours sincerely" or alike.

Now the only question that somewhat remains is what degree of formality would be expected in those pre-closing phrases - like would some more casual sum-up of things that have already been said in the letter including compliments and good wishes, followed by a formalising "sincerely yours," be enough, or would some extra formal language and phrasings there make a better-written letter.

These are what come to mind. Due to previous discussions, I don't wish to get into a lengthy discussion with you about whether they convey or don't convey the level of respect you had in mind or the same level of respect as French closings. If they're not what you're looking for, maybe someone else will have other suggestions.

No I'd say you answered my question to the best of your abilities and your answer is very good and interesting.

English is no less sophisticated or expressive than French, it just works in a different way, there are many more varieties and different ways of using it depending on the country, and I have never lived in an English-speaking country myself, which makes my two-way experience with it somewhat artificial, since the people I have used it with are also non-natives. Hence this kind of questions.

Now I don't know when you say something like that if you mean a situation like when I was asking for a Spanish equivalent of « je vous en prie » and we couldn't find one, or those annoying occurrences when the conversation was inappropriately shifted from talking about my topic to talking about me. I've never had a problem with someone explaining something to me - only appreciation.

[Linguaphile]

Now the only question that somewhat remains is what degree of formality would be expected in those pre-closing phrases - like would some more casual sum-up of things that have already been said in the letter including compliments and good wishes, followed by a formalising "sincerely yours," be enough, or would some extra formal language and phrasings there make a better-written letter.

It should be enough, yes. A lack of "extra formal language and phrasings" wouldn't be viewed as making the letter not respectful enough or make it seem poorly-written. On the contrary, a letter that uses "standard" formulaic phrases and a formal tone (avoiding slang, etc) is generally considered quite formal and respectful on its own without it being "expected" that you should add any additional formality to it. The additional expressions of respect that you're asking about are just something you can add if saying it is important to you, so it only depends on the preferences of the letter-writer and how "effusive" you want to be with your praise.

[Woods]

One more question: should the assistant of the highly respected person also get a "yours sincerely", or is it more appropriate to end a letter to them with "Kind regards"?

[Linguaphile]

One more question: should the assistant of the highly respected person also get a "yours sincerely", or is it more appropriate to end a letter to them with "Kind regards"?

Some style guides recommend reserving "yours sincerely" for people you know and using "yours truly" (or "yours faithfully" in British English I believe) for people you don't know. In that case if you know the person who is highly respected but don't know their assistant, you might use "yours sincerely" for the person you know and "yours truly" or "yours faithfully"* (or "kind regards", why not?) for the assistant.
Personally I'd probably use "sincerely" or "sincerely yours" for both, regardless of how well I know them.