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I should add that David (who you called Diamond) is right when he said to use ser. Sosia introduced the idea that someone could temporarily be courteous to serve some selfish whim. Now, taking those two ideas into consideration, I would use ser to describe a characteristic. If someone were courteous only when it served their purposes, but were not courteous otherwise, you could use estar to describe the temporary condition.
Note condition versus characteristic. I think those are important differences. If someone is sick, we usually think of it as a temporary condition. If someone is mentally ill, that is a characteristic (even if the person may be cured at some future time). The condition requires estar and the characteristic requires ser.
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